t 


I 


tibvavy  of  trhe  theological  Seminar y 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 


BL  2715  .A2  1887 

Abbott,  Edwin  Abbott,  1838 

1926. 
The  kernel  and  the  husk 


i    'UJ?.  </?**, 


~) 


fljbH)      ' 


7*7 


THE    KERNEL 


AND 


THE     HUSK 


THE     KER 


AND 


THE     HUSK 


letters  an;  Spiritual  <!%igiiaraijr 


BY    THE   AUTHOR   OF 

"PHILOCHRISTUS"  AND  "ONESIMUS" 


BOSTON 
ROBERTS  BROTHERS 

1887 


TO 

THE  DOUBTERS  OF  THIS  GENERATION 

AND 

THE  BELIEVERS  OF  THE  NEXT 


TO    THE    READER 

The  time  is  not  perhaps  far  distant  when  few  will 
believe  in  miracles  who  clo  not  also  believe  in  an 
infallible  Church  ;  and  then,  such  books  as  the  present 
will  appeal  to  a  larger  circle.  But,  as  things  are,  the 
author  would  beg  all  those  who  worship  a  miraculous 
Christ  without  doubt  and  difficulty  to  pause  here  and 
read  no  further.  The  book  is  not  intended  for  them  ; 
it  is  intended  for  those  alone  to  whom  it  is  dedicated, 
"  the  doubters  of  this  generation." 

For  there  are  some  who  feel  drawn  towards  the 
worship  of  Christ  by  love  and  reverence,  yet  repelled 
by  an  apparently  inextricable  connection  of  the  story 
of  Christ  with  a  miraculous  element  which,  in  their 
minds,  throws  a  doubt  over  the  whole  of  His  acts, 
His  doctrine,  His  character,  and  even  His  existence. 
Others,  who  worship  Christ,  worship  Him  inse- 
curely and  tremulously.  They  assume  that  their  faith 
must  rest  on  the  basis  of  the  Bible  miracles ;  and  at 


vi  TO  THE  READER 

times  they  cannot  quite  suppress  a  thrill  of  doubt  and 
terror  lest  some  horrible  discovery  of  fresh  truth, 
resulting  in  the  destruction  of  the  miraculous  element 
of  the  Bible,  may  impair  their  right  to  regard  Christ 
as  "anything  better  than  a  mere  man."  It  is  to 
these  two  classes — the  would-be  worshippers  and  the 
doubtful  worshippers  of  Christ — that  the  following 
Letters  are  addressed  by  one  who  has  for  many  years 
found  peace  and  salvation  in  the  worship  of  a  non- 
miraculous  Christ. 

Not  very  long  ago,  but  some  years  after  the 
publication  of  a  work  called  Philochristus,  the  author 
received  a  letter  from  a  stranger  and  fellow-clergyman, 
asking  him  whether  he  could  spare  half  an  hour  to 
visit  him  on  his  death-bed,  "dying  of  a  disease" — 
so  ran  the  letter — "  which  will  be  fatal  within  some 
uncertain  weeks  (possibly  however  days,  possibly 
months).  No  pains  just  now,  head  clear,  voice 
sound.      And    mind    at  peace,    but    the    peace    of 

reverent  agnosticism Now  I    have  read   and 

appreciated  Philochristus.  It  would  comfort  my 
short  remainder  of  life  if  you  would  come  and  look 
me  dying  in  the  face  and  say,  '  This  theology  and 
Christology  of  mine  is  not  merely  literary :  I  feel 
with  joy  of  heart  that  God  is  not  unknown  to  man : 
try  even  now  to  feel  with  me.'  " 


TO  THE  READER  vii 

Of  what  passed  at  the  subsequent  interview  nothing 
must  be  said  except  that  the  dying  man  (whose 
anticipations  of  death  were  speedily  verified)  expressed 
the  conviction  that  one  reason  why  he  had  fallen  into 
that  abyss  of  agnosticism — for  an  abyss  he  then  felt 
it  to  be — was  that  he  had  been  "  taught  to  believe 
too  much  when  young ;  "  and  he  urged  and  almost 
besought  that  something  might  be  done  soon  to  "  give 
young  men  a  religion  that  would  wear."  These  words 
were  not  to  be  forgotten  ;  they  recurred  again  and 
again  to  the  author  with  the  force  of  a  command. 
The  present  work  is  an  attempt  to  carry  them  into 
effect,  an  attempt,  by  one  who  has  passed  through 
doubts  into  conviction,  to  look  the  doubting  reader  in 
the  face  and  say,  "  This  theology  and  Christology  of 
mine  is  not  merely  literary.  I  feel  with  joy  of  heart 
that  God  is  not  unknown  to  man.  Try  even  now  to 
feel  with  me." 

The  author  does  not  profess  to  clear  Christianity 
from  all  "  difficulties."  If  a  revelation  is  to  enlarge 
our  conceptions  of  God,  it  must  involve  some  spiritual 
effort  on  our  part  to  receive  the  larger  truth ;  if  it 
claims  to  be  historical,  it  may  well  impose  on  some  of 
its  adherents  the  labour  needed  for  the  judgment  of 
historical  evidence  ;  if  it  prompts,  without  enforcing, 
obedience,  it  must  excite  in  all  some  questionings  as 


viii  TO  THE  READER 

to  the  causes  which  led  the  Revealer  not  to  make 
His  revelation  irresistibly  convincing.  Even  the  ex- 
planations of  the  mysterious  phenomena  of  motion, 
light,  and  chemistry,  involve  "  difficulties "  in  the 
acceptance  of  still  more  mysterious  Laws  which  we 
cannot  at  present  explain.  Nevertheless  we  all  feel 
that  we  understand  astronomy  better  in  the  light  of 
the  Law  of  gravitation :  and  in  the  same  way  some 
may  feel  that  Christianity  becomes  more  spiritual, 
as  well  as  more  clear,  when  it  becomes  more  natural ; 
and  that  many  of  its  so-called  "  difficulties  "  fade  or 
vanish,  when  what  may  be  called  its  celestial  and  its 
terrestrial  phenomena  are  found  to  rest  upon  similar 
principles. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Letter  Page 

1  Introductory ....         I 

2  Personal 5 

3  Knowledge    ....  20 

4  Ideals 29 

5  Ideals  and  Tests    .    .  40 

6  Imagination  and  Rea- 

son             47 

7  7/fe  Culture  of  Faith     59 

8  Faith     and    Demon- 

stration         72 

9  Satan  and  Evolution     So 

10  Illusions 97 

1 1  What  is  Worship  ?  .     1 1 1 

12  The      Worship       of 

Christ 125 

13  What  is  "  Nature"  ?  134 

14  The  Miracles   of  the 

Old  Testament  .    .     142 

15  The  Miracles  of  the 

New  Testament     .     158 

16  The    Growth    of  the 

Gospels 170 

17  Christian  Illusions  .     J  85 

18  Are  the  Miracles  in- 

separable from  the 
Life  of  Christ  ?    .     20 1 

19  The   Feeding  of    the 

Four  Thousand  and 
the  Five   Thousand  212 

20  The  Manifestation  of 

Christ  to  St.  Paul  225 


Letter  Page 

21  'The    Development   of 

Imagination  and 
its  bearing  on 
the  Revelation  of 
Christ's  Resurrec- 
tion      233 

22  Christ 's   Resurrection 

regarded  naturally  240 

23  Faith  in  the  spiritual 

Resurrection  is  better 
than  so-called  know- 
ledge of  the  material 
Resurrection      .    .     246 

24  What  is  a  Spirit  ?     .     258 

25  The  Incarnation  .    .     267 

26  Prayer,  Heaven,  Hell  28 1 

27  Pauline  Theology  .    .     298 

28  Objections  .         ...     310 

29  Can  Natural  Christi- 

anity commend  it- 
self to  the  masses  ?  320 

APPENDIX 

30  Can    a     believer     in 

Natural  Christian- 
ity be  a  Minister 
in  the  Church  of 
England?.    .    .    .     339 


31      What     the     Bishops 
might  do     ...    . 


Definitions 


354 
369 


THE    KERNEL 


AND 


THE     HUSK. 


INTRODUCTORY 


My  dear , 

I  am  more  pained  than  surprised  to  infer  from  your 
last  letter  that  your  faith  has  received  a  severe  shock. 
A  single  term  at  the  University  has  sufficed  to  make  you 
doubt  whether  you  retain  a  belief  in  miracles  ;  and  "If 
miracles  fall,  the  Bible  falls  ;  and  with  the  fall  of  the  Bible 
I  lose  Christ ;  and  if  I  must  regard  Christ  as  a  fanatic,  I 
do  not  see  how  I  can  believe  in  a  God  who  suffered  such 
a  one  as  Christ  thus  to  be  deceived  and  to  deceive  others." 
Such  appear  to  be  the  thoughts  that  are  passing  through 
your  mind,  as  I  infer  them  from  incidental  and  indirect 
expressions  rather  than  from  any  definite  statement. 

Unfortunately  I  understand  all  this  too  well  not  to  be 
able  to  follow  with  ease  such  phases  of  disbelief  even 
when  conveyed  in  hints.  Many  young  men  begin  by  being 
taught  to  believe  too  much,  a  great  deal  too  much.  Then, 
when  they  find  they  must  give  up  something,  (the  husk 
of  the  kernel)  their  teachers  too  often  bid  them  swallow 
husk  and  all,  on  pain  of  swallowing  nothing :  and  they 
prefer  to  swallow  nothing.  An  instance  of  this  at  once 
occurs  to  me.     Many  years  ago,  a  young  man  who  wished 

B 


2  INTRODUCTORY  {Letter  i 

to  be  ordained,  asked  me  to  read  the  Old  Testament  with 
him.  We  set  to  work  at  once  and  read  some  miraculous 
history — I  forget  precisely  what — in  which  I  thought  my 
young  friend  must  needs  see  a  difficulty.  So  I  began  to 
point  out  how  the  difficulty  might  be  at  least  diminished 
by  critical  considerations.  I  say  "  I  began  :  "  for  I  stopped 
as  soon  as  I  had  begun,  finding  that  my  friend  saw  no 
difficulty  at  all.  He  accepted  every  miracle  on  every  page 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  on  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  ;  just  as  a  Roman  Catholic  accepts  every  ecclesias- 
tical doctrine  on  the  authority  of  the  Church.  This  seemed 
to  me  not  a  state  of  mind  that  I  ought  to  interfere  with  :  I 
might  do  more  harm  than  good.  So  I  stopped.  But  I  have 
since  regretted  it.  Circumstances  prevented  me  from 
meeting  my  friend  for  some  weeks.  During  that  time  he 
had  fallen  in  with  companions  of  negative  views,  against 
which  he  had  no  power  to  maintain  his  position :  and 
he  had  passed  from  believing  everything  to  believing 
nothing.  That  is  only  too  easy  a  transition  ;  but  I  hope 
you  will  never  experience  it.  Surely  there  is  a  medium 
between  swallowing  the  husk,  and  throwing  the  nut  away. 
Is  it  not  possible  to  throw  away  the  husk  and  keep  the 
kernel  ? 

Now  I  have  no  right  (and  therefore  I  try  to  feel  no 
wish)  to  extract  from  you  a  confidence  that  you  do  not 
care  to  repose  in  me.  I  have  never  tried  to  shake  any- 
one's faith  in  miracles.  There  may  come — I  think  there 
will  soon  come— a  time  when  a  belief  in  miracles  will  be 
found  so  incompatible  with  the  reverence  which  we  ought 
to  feel  for  the  Supreme  Order  as  almost  to  necessitate 
superstition,  and  to  encourage  immorality  in  the  holder 
of  the  belief :  and  then  it  might  be  necessary  to  express 
one's  condemnation  of  miracles  plainly  and  even  aggres- 
sively. But  that  time  has  not  come  yet :  and  for  most 
people,  at  present,  an  acceptance  of  miracles  seems,  and 


Letter  i]  INTRODUCTORY  3 

perhaps  is,  a  necessary  basis  for  their  acceptance  of 
Christ.  In  such  minds  I  would  no  more  wish  to  disturb 
the  belief  in  miracles  than  I  would  shake  a  little  child's 
faith  that  his  father  is  perfectly  good  and  wise.  But  when 
a  man  says,  "  the  miracles  of  Christ  are  inextricably  con- 
nected with  the  life  of  Christ  ;  I  am  forced  to  reject  the 
former,  and  therefore  I  must  also  reject  the  latter  "—then 
I  feel  moved  to  shew  him  that  there  is  no  such  inextric- 
able connection,  and  that  Christ  will  remain  for  us  a 
necessary  object  of  worship,  even  if  we  detach  the  miracles 
from  the  Gospels.  Now  I  cannot  do  this  without  shewing 
that  the  miraculous  accounts  stand  on  a  lower  level  than 
the  rest  of  the  Gospel  narrative,  and  that  they  may  have 
been  easily  introduced  into  the  Gospels  without  any  suffi- 
cient basis  of  fact,  and  yet  without  any  intention  to 
deceive  ;  so  that  the  discrediting  of  the  miracles  will  not 
discredit  their  non-miraculous  context.  In  doing  this,  I 
might  possibly  destroy  any  lingering  vestige  of  belief  which 
you  may  still  have  in  the  miraculous  ;  and  this  I  am  most 
unwilling  to  do,  if  you  find  miracles  a  necessary  founda- 
tion of  Christian  faith. 

I  do  not  therefore  quite  know  as  yet  how  I  ought  to  try 
to  help  you,  except  by  saying  that  I  have  myself  passed 
through  the  same  valley  of  doubt  through  which  you  are 
passing  now,  and  that  I  have  reached  a  faith  in  Christ 
which  is  quite  independent  of  any  belief  in  the  miraculous, 
and  which  enables  me  not  only  to  trust  in  Him,  but  also 
to  worship  Him.  This  new  faith  appears  to  me  purer, 
nobler,  and  happier,  as  well  as  safer,  than  the  old  :  but  I 
do  not  feel  sure  that  it  is  attainable  (in  the  present  con- 
dition of  thought)  without  more  unprejudiced  reflection 
and  study  than  most  people  are  willing  to  devote  to 
subjects  of  this  kind.  And  to  give  up  the  old  faith, 
without  attaining  the  new,  would  be  a  terrible  disaster. 
Hence  I  am  in  doubt,  not  about  what  is  best,  but  about 

B  2 


4  INTRODUCTORY  [Letter  i 

what  may  be  best  for  yon.  Do  not  at  all  events  assume 
— so  much  I  can  safely  say — that  you  must  give  up  your 
faith  in  Christ,  if  you  are  obliged  to  give  up  your  belief  in 
miracles.  At  the  very  least,  wait  a  while  ;  stand  on  the 
old  paths  ;  keep  up  the  old  habits,  above  all,  the  habit  of 
prayer  ;  pause  and  look  round  you  a  little  before  taking 
the  next  step.  I  do  not  say,  though  I  am  inclined  to  say, 
"  avoid  for  the  present  all  discussions  with  people  of 
negative  views,"  because  I  fear  my  advice,  though  really 
prudent,  would  seem  to  you  cowardly  :  but  I  do  unhesi- 
tatingly say,  "  avoid  all  frivolous  talk,  and  light,  airy, 
epigrammatic  conversations  on  religious  subjects.''  You 
cannot  hope  to  retain  or  regain  faith  if  you  throw  away 
the  habit  of  reverence.  With  this  advice,  farewell  for 
the  present. 


PERSONAL 


II 

My  dear , 

You  tell  me  that  you  fear  your  faith  is  far  too  roughly 
shaken  to  suffer  now  from  anything  that  may  be  said 
against  miracles :  you  are  utterly  convinced  that  they 
are  false.  As  for  the  possibility  of  worshipping  a  non- 
miraculous  Christ,  "the  very  notion  of  it,"  you  say,  "  is 
inconceivable  :  it  seems  like  a  new  religion,  and  must 
surely  be  no  more  than  a  very  transient  phase  of  thought." 
But  you  would  "  very  much  like  to  know  what  processes 
of  reasoning  led  to  such  a  state  of  mind,"  and  how  long 
I  have  retained  it- 

I  think  I  am  hardly  doing  you  an  injustice  in  inferring 
from  some  other  expressions  in  your  letter,  about  "  the 
difficulty  which  clergymen  must  necessarily  feel  in  putting 
themselves  into  the  mental  position  of  the  laity,"  that  you 
entertain  some  degree  of  prejudice  against  my  views,  not 
only  because  they  appear  to  you  novel,  but  because — 
although  you  hardly  like  to  say  so— they  come  from  a 
clerical  source,  and  are  likely  to  savour  of  clericalism. 
Let  me  see  if  I  can  put  your  thoughts  into  the  plain  words 
from  which  your  own  modesty  and  sense  of  propriety 
have  caused  you  to  refrain.  "  A  clergyman,"  you  say  to 
yourself, '"  has  enlisted  ;  he  has  deliberately  taken  a  side 
and  is  bound  to  fight  for  it.  After  twenty  years  of  seeing 
one  side  of  a  question,  or  only  so  much  of  the  other  side 
as  is  convenient  to  see,  how  can  even  a  candid,  middle- 
aged  cleric  see  two  sides  impartially?   All  his  interests 


6  PERSONAL  {Letter  2 

combine  with  all  his  sympathies  to  make  him  at  least  in 
some  sense  orthodox.  The  desire  of  social  esteem,  the 
hope  of  preferment,  loyalty  to  the  Church,  loyalty  to 
Christ  Himself,  make  him  falsely  true  to  that  narrow 
form  of  truth  which  he  has  bound  himself  to  serve.  Even 
if  truth  and  irresistible  conviction  force  him  to  deviate  a 
little  from  the  beaten  road  of  orthodoxy,  he  will  find 
his  way  back  by  some  circuitous  by-path  ;  and  of  this 
kind  of  self-persuasion  I  have  a  remarkable  instance  in 
the  person  of  my  old  friend,  who  rejects  miracles  and 
yet  persuades  himself  that  he  worships  Christ.  He  has 
cut  away  his  foundations  and  now  proceeds  to  substitute 
an  aerial  basis  upon  which  the  old  superstructure  is  to 
remain  as  before.  Such  a  novel  condition  of  mind  as  this 
can  only  be  a  very  transient  phase." 

I  do  not  complain  of  this  prejudice  against  novelty, 
although  it  comes  ungraciously  from  one  who  is  himself 
verging  on  advanced  and  novel  views.  It  is  good  that 
new  opinions  should  be  suspiciously  scrutinized  and  passed 
through  the  quarantine  of  prejudice.  And  when  a  man 
feels  (as  I  do)  that  he  has  at  last  attained  a  profound 
spiritual  truth  which  will,  in  all  probability,  be  generally 
accepted  by  educated  Christians  who  are  not  Roman 
Catholics,  before  the  twentieth  century  is  far  advanced,  he 
can  well  afford  to  be  patient  of  prejudice.  Even  though 
the  truth  be  not  accepted  now,  it  is  pretty  sure  to  be  re- 
stated by  others  with  more  skill  and  cogency,  and  perhaps 
at  a  fitter  season,  and  to  gain  acceptance  in  due  time. 
But  when  you  speak  of  my  opinions  as  a  "  transient  phase," 
which  I  am  likely  soon  to  give  up,  and  when  you  shew  a 
manifest  suspicion  that  any  modicum  of  orthodoxy  in  me 
must  needs  be  the  result  of  a  clerical  bias,  then  I  hardly 
see  how  to  reply  except  by  giving  you  a  detailed  answer 
to  your  question  about "  the  processes  "  by  which  I  was  led 
to  "  such  a  novel  condition  of  mind."     Yet  how  to  do  this 


Letter  2]  PERSONAL  7 

without  being  somewhat  egotistically  autobiographical 
I  do  not  know.  Some  good  may  come  of  egotism  perhaps, 
if  it  leads  you  to  see  that  even  a  clergyman  may  think  for 
himself,  and  work  out  a  religious  problem  without  regard 
to  consequences.  So  on  the  whole  I  think  I  will  risk 
egotism  for  your  sake.  A  few  paragraphs  of  autobiography 
may  serve  as  a  summary  of  the  argument  which  I  might 
draw  out  more  fully  in  future  letters.  If  I  am  tedious, 
lay  the  blame  on  yourself  and  on  your  insinuation  that  my 
v^ews  must  be  "  a  transient  phase."  A  man  who  is  getting 
on  towards  his  fiftieth  year  and  has  retained  a  form  —a 
novel  form  if  you  please— of  religious  conviction  for  a  full 
third  of  his  life  may  surely  claim  that  his  views— so  far  at 
least  as  he  himself  is  concerned— are  not  to  be  called 
"  transient."     Prepare  then  for  my  Apologia. 

During  my  childhood  I  was  very  much  left  to  myself  in 
the  matter  of  religion,  and  may  be  almost  said  to  have 
picked  it  up  in  a  library.  I  was  never  made  to  learn  the 
Creed  by  heart,  nor  the  Catechism,  nor  even  the  Ten 
Commandments  ;  and  to  this  day  I  can  recollect  being 
reproached  by  a  class-master  when  I  was  nearly  fourteen 
years  old,  for  not  knowing  which  was  the  Fifth  Command- 
ment. All  that  I  could  plead  in  answer  was,  that  if  he 
would  tell  me  what  it  was  about,  I  could  give  him  the  sub- 
stance of  the  precept.  Having  read  through  nearly  the 
whole  of  Adam  Clarke's  commentary  as  a  boy  of  ten  or 
eleven,  and  having  subsequently  imbued  myself  with  books 
of  Evangelical  doctrine,  I  was  perfectly  "  up,"  or  thought  I 
was,  in  the  Pauline  scheme  of  salvation,  and  felt  a  most 
lively  interest— on  Sundays,  and  in  dull  moments  on  week 
days,  and  especially  in  times  of  illness,  of  which  I  had 
plenty— in  the  salvation  of  my  own  soul.  My  religion 
served  largely  to  intensify  my  natural  selfishness.  In  better 
and  healthier  moments,  my  conscience  revolted  against  it  ; 
and  at  times  I  felt  that  the  morality  of  Plutarch's  Lives  was 


8  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

better  than  that  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles— as  I  interpreted 
them.  Only  to  one  point  in  the  theology  of  my  youthful 
days  can  I  now  look  back  with  pleasure  ;  and  that  is  to 
my  treatment  of  the  doctrine  of  Predestinarianism  and 
necessity.  On  this  matter  I  argued  as  follows  :  "  If  God 
knows  all  things  beforehand,  God  has  them,  or  may  have 
them,  written  down  in  a  book  ;  and  if  all  things  that  are 
going  to  happen  are  already  written  down  in  a  book,  it's  of 
no  use  our  trying  to  alter  them.  So,  if  it's  predestined  that 
I  shall  have  my  dinner  to-day,  I  shall  certainly  have  it,  even 
if  I  don't  come  home  in  time,  or  even  though  I  lock  myself 
up  in  my  bedroom.  But  practically,  if  I  don  t  come  home 
in  time,  I  know  I  shall  ?iot  have  my  dinner.  Therefore 
it's  no  use  talking  about  these  things  in  this  sort  of  way, 
because  it  does?iH  answer;  and  I  shall  not  bother  myself 
any  more  about  Predestination,  but  act  as  though  it  did 
not  exist"1  This  argument,  if  it  can  be  called  an  argu- 
ment, I  afterwards  found  sheltering  itself  under  the  high 
authority  of  Butler's  Analogy  ;  and  I  still  adhere  to  it, 
after  an  experience  of  more  than  five  and  thirty  years. 
To  some,  this  "  Short  Way  with  Predestinarians "  may 
seem  highly  illogical  ;  but  it  works. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  been  little,  if  at  all,  impressed  by 
preaching.  Our  old  Rector  was  a  good  Greek  scholar 
and  a  gentleman  ;  but  he  had  a  difficulty  in  making  his 
thoughts  intelligible  to  any  but  a  refined  minority  among 
the  congregation  ;  and  even  that  select  few  was  made  fewer, 
partly  by  an  awkwardness  of  gesture  which  reminded  one 
of  Dominie  Sampson,  and  partly  by  a  grievous  impedi- 

1  That  children,  even  at  a  much  younger  age  than  ten,  do  sometimes 
exercise  their  young  minds  to  very  ill  purpose  about  these  subtle  metaplrysical 
questions  is  probably  within  the  experience  of  all  who  know  anything  about 
children,  and  it  is  amusingly  illustrated  by  the  following  answer  (which  I  have 
on  the  authority  of  an  intimate  friend)  from  a  seven-years-old  to  his  mother 
when  blaming  him  for  some  misconduct :  "  Why  did  you  born  me  then?  I 
didn't  want  to  be  borned.     You  should  have  asked  me  before  you  borned 


Letter  2]  PERSONAL  9 

ment  in  his  speech.  Consequently  I  had  been  permitted, 
and  indeed  encouraged,  never  to  listen,  nor  even  to  appear 
to  listen,  to  the  weekly  sermon  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  Rector 
gave  out  his  text,  I  used  to  take  up  my  Bible  and  read 
steadily  away  till  the  sermon  was  over.  This  sort  of  thing 
went  on  till  I  was  about  sixteen  years  old  ;  when  a  new 
Rector  came  to  preach  his  first  sermon.  That  was  a  re- 
markable Sunday  for  me.  To  my  surprise,  when  he  read 
out  his  text,  and  I,  in  accordance  with  unbroken  precedent, 
reached  out  my  hand  for  the  invariable  Bible,  my  father, 
somewhat  abruptly,  took  it  out  of  my  hand,  bidding  me 
"  for  once  shut  up  that  book  and  listen  to  a  sermon."  I 
can  still  remember  the  resentment  I  felt  at  this  infringe- 
ment on  my  theological  and  constitutional  rights,  and  how 
I  stiffened  my  neck  and  hardened  my  heart  and  deter- 
mined "hearing  to  hear,  but  not  to  understand."  But  I 
was  compelled  to  understand.  For  here,  to  my  astonish- 
ment, was  an  entirely  new  religion.  This  man's  Chris- 
tianity was  not  a  "  scheme  of  salvation  ;"  it  was  a  faith  in 
a  great  Leader,  human  yet  divine,  who  was  leading  the 
armies  of  God  against  the  armies  of  Evil  ;  "  Each  for 
himself  is  the  Devil's  own  watchword  :  but  with  us  it  must 
be  each  for  Christ,  and  each  for  all."  The  scales  fell  from 
my  eyes.  After  all,  then,  Christianity  was  not  less  noble 
than  Plutarch's  lives  ;  it  was  more  noble.  There  was  to 
be  a  contest ;  yet  not  each  man  contending  for  his  own 
soul,  but  for  good  against  evil.  A  Christian  was  not  a 
mercenary  fighting  for  reward,  nor  a  slave  fighting  for  fear 
of  stripes,  but  a  free  soldier  fighting  out  of  loyalty  to 
Christ  and  to  humanity. 

But  what  about  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  Justifica- 
tion by  Faith,  and  the  other  Pauline  doctrines  ?  About 
these  our  new  Rector  did  not  say  much  that  I  could 
understand.  He  was  a  foremost  pupil  of  Mr.  Maurice, 
and  in  Mr.  Maurice's  books  (which  now  began  to  be  read 


io  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

freely  in  my  home)  I  began  to  search  for  light  on  these 
questions.  But  help  I  found  none  or  very  little,  except  in 
one  book.  Mr.  Maurice  seemed  to  me,  and  still  seems, 
a  very  obscure  writer.  Partly  owing  to  a  habit  of  taking 
things  for  granted  and  "thinking  underground,"  partly 
(and  much  more)  owing  to  a  confusing  use  of  pronouns  for 
nouns  and  other  mere  mechanical  defects  of  style,  he  re- 
quires very  careful  reading.  But  his  book  on  Sacrifice, 
after  I  had  three  times  read  it  through,  gave  me  more 
intellectual  help  than  perhaps  any  other  book  on  Christian 
doctrine  ;  for  here  first  I  learned  to  look  below  the  surface 
of  a  rite  at  its  inner  meaning,  and  also  to  discern  the 
possibility  of  illustrating  that  inner  meaning  by  the 
phenomena  of  daily  life.  It  was  certainly  a  revelation 
to  me  to  know  that  the  sacrifice  of  a  lamb  by  a  human 
offerer  was  nothing,  except  so  far  as  it  meant  the  sacrifice  of 
a  human  life,  and  that  the  sacrifice  of  a  life  meant  no  more 
(but  also  no  less)  than  conforming  one's  life  to  God's  will, 
doing  (and  not  saying  merely)  "Thy  will,  not  mine,  be 
done."  If  one  theological  process  could  be  illustrated  in 
this  way,  why  not  another?  If  "sacrifice  "  was  going  on 
before  my  eyes  every  day,  why  might  there  not  be  also 
justification  by  faith,  imputation  of  righteousness,  re- 
mission of  sins,  yes,  even  atonement  itself?  Thus  there 
was  sown  in  my  mind  the  seed  of  the  notion  that  all 
the  Pauline  doctrines  might  be  natural,  and  that  Redemp- 
tion through  Christ  was  only  a  colossal  form  of  that  kind 
of  redemption  which  was  going  on  around  me,  Redemption 
through  Nature.  This  thought  was  greatly  stimulated  by 
the  study  of  /;/  Memoriam,  which  was  given  to  me  by  a 
college  friend  about  the  time  when  I  lost  a  brother  and  a 
sister,  both  dying  within  a  few  weeks  of  one  another.  I 
read  the  poem  again  and  again,  and  committed  much  of  it 
to  memory  ;  and  it  exerted  an  "  epoch-making"  influence 
on  my  life.     However,  for  a  long  time  this  notion  of  the 


Letter  2\  PERSONAL  n 

naturalness  of  Redemption  existed  for  me  merely  in  the 
germ. 

Meantime,  as  to  the  miracles  I  had  no  doubts  at  all,  or 
only  such  transient  doubts  as  were  suggested  by  pictures 
of  Holy  Families  and  other  sacred  subjects,  which  ex- 
hibited Christ  as  essentially  non-human,  with  a  halo 
around  his  head,  or  as  an  infant  with  three  outstretched 
fingers  blessing  his  kneeling  mother.  As  a  youth,  I  took 
it  for  granted  that  God  could  not  become  man  save  by  a 
miracle,  and  therefore  that  the  God-man  must  work 
miracles.  Further,  I  assumed  that  Moses  and  some  of 
the  prophets  had  worked  miracles,  and  if  so,  how  could  it 
be  that  the*Servants  should  work  miracles  and  the  Son 
should  not?  As  I  grew  towards  manhood,  such  rising 
qualms  of  doubt  as  I  felt  on  this  point  were  stilled  by  the 
suggestion  (which  I  found  in  Trench's  book  on  miracles) 
that  the  miracles  of  Christ  must  be  in  accordance  with 
some  latent  law  of  spiritual  nature.  It  was  a  little  strange 
certainly  that  these  latent  laws  should  be  utilised  only  for 
the  children  of  Abraham,  and  it  was  inconvenient  that 
the  miracles  of  Moses  should  be,  materially  speaking,  so 
stupendously  superior  to  those  of  Christ ;  but  I  took  re- 
fuge in  the  greater  beauty  and  emblematic  meaning  of  the 
latter.  Even  at  the  time  when  I  signed  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  I  had  no  suspicion  that  the  miracles  were  not 
historical.  Partly,  I  had  never  critically  and  systematic- 
ally studied  the  Gospels  as  one  studies  Thucydides  or 
yEschylus  ;  partly  the  miracles  had  always  been  kept  in 
the  background  by  my  Rector  and  the  books  of  the 
Broad  Church  School,  and  I  had  been  accustomed  to  rest 
my  faith  on  Christ  Himself  and  not  on  the  miracles  ;  and 
so  it  came  to  pass  that,  for  some  time  after  I  was  ordained, 
I  was  quite  content  to  accept  all  the  miracles  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  and  to  be  content  with  the  ex- 
planation suggested  by  "latent  laws." 


12  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

But  now  that  I  was  ordained,  I  set  to  work  in  earnest  (the 
stress  of  working  for  a  degree  and  the  need  of  earning  one's 
living  had  left  no  time  for  it  before)  at  the  study  of  the 
New  Testament.  Of  course  I  had  "got  it  up"  before,  often 
enough,  for  the  purpose  of  passing  examinations  ;  but  now 
I  began  to  study  it  for  its  own  sake  and  at  leisure.  While 
reading  for  the  Theological  Tripos  I  had  been  struck  by 
the  inadequacy  of  many  of  the  theological  books  that  I 
had  had  to  "  get  up."  Especially  on  the  first  three  Gos- 
pels— looking  at  them  critically,  as  I  had  been  accustomed 
to  look  at  Greek  and  Latin  books — I  was  amazed  to  find 
that  little  or  nothing  had  been  done  by  English  scholars 
to  compare  the  different  styles  and  analyse  the  narratives 
into  their  component  parts.  For  such  a  task  I  had  myself 
received  some  little  preparation.  I  had  picked  up  my 
classics  without  very  much  assistance  from  the  ordinary 
means,  mainly  by  voluntarily  committing  to  memory  whole 
books  or  long  continuous  passages  of  the  best  authors, 
and  so  imbuing  myself  with  them  as  to  "get  into  the 
swing  of  the  author."  I  had  early  begun  to  tabulate  these 
differences  of  style  ;  and  in  my  final  and  most  important 
University  examination  I  remember  sending  up  more  than 
one  piece  of  composition  rendered  in  two  styles.  Though 
I  was  never  a  first-rate  composer,  owing  to  my  want  of 
practice  at  school,  this  method  had  succeeded  in  bringing 
me  to  the  front  in  "  my  year ; "  and  I  now  desired  to 
apply  my  classical  studies  to  the  criticism  of  the  first 
three  Gospels.  It  seemed  to  me  a  monstrous  thing 
that  we  should  have  three  accounts  of  the  same  life, 
accounts  closely  agreeing  in  certain  parts,  but  widely 
varying  in  others,  and  yet  that,  with  all  the  aids  of  modern 
criticism,  we  should  not  be  able  to  determine  which  ac- 
counts, or  which  parts  of  the  three  accounts,  were  the 
earliest.  At  the  same  time  I  began  to  apply  the  same 
method,  though  without  the  same  attempt  at  exactness, 


Letter  2\  PERSONAL  13 

to  the  study  of  the  text  of  Shakespeare  ;  in  which  I  per- 
ceived some  differences  of  style  that  implied  difference 
of  date,  and  some  that  appeared  to  imply  difference  of 
authorship. 

About  this  time  people  began  to  talk  in  popular  circles 
concerning  Evolution,   and  alarm    began   to    be  felt  in 
some     quarters    at    the    difficulty    of    harmonizing    its 
theories  with  theology.     With  these  fears  I  never  could 
in  the  least  degree  sympathize.     I   welcomed  Evolution 
as   a    luminous   commentary    on  the    divine    scheme   of 
the  Redemption  of  mankind.     That  most  stimulating  of 
books,  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  had  taught  me  to  be 
prepared  to  find  that  in  very  many  cases  "  while  Nature  or 
man  intendeth  one  thing,  God  worketh  another  ;  "  and  it 
was  a  joy  to  me  to  find  new  light  thrown  by  Evolution  on 
the  unfathomable  problems  of  waste,  death,  and  conflict. 
Death   and   conflict   could   never   be   thus  explained— I 
knew  that — but  one  was  enabled  to  wait  more  patiently 
for  that  explanation  which  will  never  come  to  us  till  we 
are   behind   the  veil,  when   one  found   that   death   and 
conflict  had  at  least  been  subordinated  to  progress  and 
development.     So   I   thought  ;   and  so   I   said  from  the 
pulpit  of   one  of   the    Universities    in    times  when  the 
clergy  had  not  yet  learned  to  call  Darwin  "  a  man  of 
God."     My  doctrine  was  thought  "advanced"  in  those 
days  ;  but  time  has  gone  on  and  left  me,  in  some  respects, 
behind  it.     I  should  never  have  thought,  and  should  not 
think  now,  of  calling  Darwin  "a  man  of  God,"  except  so 
far  as  all  patient  seekers  after  truth  are  men  of  God  : 
but  I  still  adhere  to  the  belief  that  Evolution  has  made  it 
more  easy  to  believe  in  a  rational,  that  is  to  say  a  non- 
miraculous,  though  supernatural,  Christianity. 

In  this  direction,  then,  my  thoughts  went  forward  and, 
so  far,  found  no  stumbling-block.  Guided  by  the  poets 
and  analytic  novelists,  I  was  also  learning  to  find  in  the 


14  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

study  of  the  phenomena  of  daily  life  fresh  illustrations 
of  the  Pauline  theology,  confirming  and  developing  my 
notion  (now  of  some  years'  standing)  that  the  Redemp- 
tion of  mankind  was  natural,  nothing  more  than  a  colossal 
representation  of  the  spiritual  phenomena  that  may  be 
seen  in  ordinary  men  and  women  every  day  of  our  lives  ; 
just  as  the  lightning-flash  is  no  more  than  (upon  a 
large  scale)  the  crackling  of  the  hair  beneath  the  comb. 
Good  men  and  women,  I  perceived,  are  daily  redeeming 
the  bad,  bearing  their  sins,  imputing  righteousness  to 
them,  giving  up  their  lives  for  them,  and  imbuing  them 
with  a  good  spirit.  This  thought,  as  it  gained  force,  was 
a  great  help  towards  a  rational  Christianity. 

But  now  my  feet  began  to  be  entangled  in  snares  and 
pitfalls.  I  had  begun  the  study  of  the  Greek  Testament, 
believing  that  it  would  bring  forth  some  new  truth,  and 
assuming  that  all  truth  must  tend  to  the  glory  of  God  and 
of  Christ.  "  Christ,"  I  said,  "is  the  living  Truth,  so  that 
I  have  but,  as  Plato  says,  to  '  follow  the  Argument/  and 
that  must  lead  me  to  the  truth,  and  therefore  to  Him." 
But  I  was  not  prepared  for  the  result.  After  some  years 
of  work  I  found  myself  gradually  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  miraculous  element  in  the  Gospels  was  not  his- 
torical. A  mere  glance  at  the  Old  Testament  shewed 
that,  if  there  was  not  evidence  enough  for  the  miracles 
in  the  New  Testament,  much  less  was  there  for  the 
miracles  in  the  Old. 

Before  me  rose  up  day  by  day  fresh  facts  and  infer- 
ences, not  only  demonstrating  the  insufficiency  of  the 
usual  evidence  to  prove  that  the  miracles  were  true,  but 
also  indicating  a  very  strong  probability  that  they  were 
false.  Often,  as  I  studied  the  accounts  of  a  miracle,  I 
could  see  it  as  it  were  in  the  act  of  growing  up,  watch  its 
first  entrance  into  the  Gospel  narrative,  note  its  modest 
beginning,  its  subsequent  development :  and  then  I  was 


Letter  2]  PERSONAL  15 

forced  to  give  it  up.  Worst  of  all,  that  miracle  of 
miracles  which  was  most  precious  to  me,  the  Resurrection 
of  Christ,  began  to  appear  to  be  supported  by  the  feeblest 
evidence  of  all.  I  had  not  at  that  time  learned  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  Resurrection  of  Christ's  material 
body  and  the  Resurrection  of  His  Spirit  or  spiritual  body. 
Christ's  Resurrection  seemed  to  me  therefore  in  those 
days  to  be  either  a  Resurrection  of  the  material  and 
tangible  body  or  no  Resurrection  at  all.  Now  for  the 
Resurrection  of  the  material  body  I  began  to  be  forced  to 
acknowledge  that  I  could  find  no  basis  of  satisfying 
testimony.  I  had  heard  an  anecdote  of  the  Head  of  some 
College  of  Oxford  in  old  days,  how  he  fell  asleep  after 
dinner  in  the'  Combination  Room,  while  the  Fellows  over 
their  wine  were  discussing  theology,  and  presently  made 
them  all  start  by  exclaiming  as  he  awoke,  "After  all  there, 
is  no  evidence  for  the  Resurrection  of  Christ ! ,;  I  realized 
that  now,  not  with  a  start,  but  gradually,  and  with  a 
growing  feeling  of  deep  and  wearing  anxiety.  If  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  fell,  what  was  to  become  of  my 
faith  in  Christ  ? 

Amid  this  impending  ruin  of  my  old  belief  I  saw  one 
tower  standing  firm.  It  was  clear  that  something  had 
happened  after  the  death  of  Christ  to  make  new  men  of 
His  disciples.  It  was  clear  also  that  St.  Paul  had  seen 
something  that  had  induced  him  to  believe  that  Christ 
had  risen  from  the  dead.  That  which  had  convinced  St. 
Paul,  an  enemy,  might  very  well  convince  the  Apostles, 
the  devoted  followers  of  Christ.  What  was  this  some- 
thing? It  seemed  to  me  that  I  ought  to  try  to  find  out. 
Meantime,  I  determined  to  adopt  the  advice  I  gave  you 
in  my  last  letter — to  stand  upon  the  old  ways  and  look 
around  me  and  consider  my  path  before  taking  another 
step.  Circumstances  had  placed  me  in  such  a  position 
that  I  was  not  called  on  to  decide  whether  a  clergyman 


1 6  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

could  entertain  such  views  as  were  looming  on  me,  and 
remain  a  clergyman.  I  was  not  engaged  in  any  work 
directly  or  indirectly  requiring  clerical  qualifications  ;  and 
as  far  as  my  affections  and  sentiments  were  concerned, 
I  went  heartily  with  the  services  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

So  I  resolved  to  put  aside  all  theology  for  two  or  three 
years  and  to  devote  myself,  during  that  time,  to  literary 
work  of  another  kind.  Meantime,  I  would  retain,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  old  religious  ways  of  thought,  and,  at  all 
events,  the  old  habits.  None  the  less,  I  would  not  give 
up  the  intention  of  investigating  the  whole  truth  about 
the  Resurrection.  That  there  was  some  nucleus  of  truth 
I  felt  quite  certain  ;  and  even  if  that  truth  had  been  em- 
bedded in  some  admixture  of  illusion,  what  then  ?  Were 
there  no  illusions  in  the  history  of  science  ?  Were  there 
no  illusions  in  the  history  of  God's  Revelation  of  Himself 
through  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  ?  Might  it  not  be 
God's  method  of  Revelation  that  men  should  pass  through 
error  to  the  truth  ?  This  line  of  thought  seemed  promising, 
but  I  would  not  at  once  follow  it.  I  would  wait  three 
years  and  then  work  out  the  question  of  the  influence  of 
illusion  on  religious  truth. 

An  old  college  acquaintance,  an  agnostic,  whom  I  met 
about  this  time,  was  not  a  little  startled  when  I  told  him 
my  thoughts.  He  frankly  informed  me  that,  though  I 
was  "placed  in  a  painful  position,"  I  was  "bound  to  speak 
out."  I  also  thought  that  I  was  "  bound  to  speak  out  ;  " 
but  I  did  not  feel  bound  to  obtrude  immature  views  upon 
the  world,  with  the  result  perhaps  of  afterwards  altering 
or  recanting  them.  So  I  took  time,  plenty  of  time  ;  I 
looked  about  me,  on  life  as  well  as  on  books  ;  I  formed  a 
habit  of  testing  assumptions  and  asking  the  meaning  of 
common  words,  especially  such  words  as  knowledge, 
faith,  certainty,  belief,  proof,  and  the  like.     Believing  that 


Letter  2\  PERSONAL  17 

theology  was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  theology,  I 
began  to  test  theological  as  well  as  other  propositions  by 
the  question  "  How  do  they  work  ? "  Meantime  I  tried 
my  utmost  to  do  the  duties  of  my  daily  life  without  dis- 
traction and  with  the  same  energy  as  before,  hoping  that 
life  itself,  and  the  needs  of  life,  would  throw  some  light 
upon  the  question,  "  What  knowledge  about  God  is 
necessary  for  men  who  are  to  do  their  duty  ?  And  how 
can  that  knowledge  be  obtained  ?  " 

By  these  means  I  was  led  to  see  that  a  great  part  of 
what  we  call  knowledge  does  not  come  to  us,  as  we  falsely 
suppose  it  does,  through  mere  logic  or  Reason,  nor  through 
unaided  experience,  but  through  the  emotions  and  the 
Imagination,  tested  by  Reason  and  experience.  Even  in 
the  world  of  science,  I  found  that  the  so-called  "  laws  and 
properties  of  matter,"  nay,  the  very  existence  of  matter, 
were  nothing  more  than  suggestions  of  the  scientific 
Imagination  aided  by  experience.  A  great  part  of  the 
environment  and  development  of  mankind  appeared  to 
have  been  directed  towards  the  building  up  of  the  imagina- 
tive faculty,  without  which,  it  seemed  that  religion,  as  well 
as  poetry,  would  have  been  non-existent.  So  by  degrees, 
it  occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  I  had  been  on  the  wrong 
track  in  my  search  after  religious  truth.  I  had  been 
craving  a  purely  historical  and  logical  proof  of  Christ's 
divinity,  and  had  felt  miserable  that  I  could  not  obtain  it. 
But  now  I  perceived  that  I  was  not  intended  to  obtain  it. 
Not  thus  was  Christ  to  be  embraced.  There  must  indeed 
be  a  basis  of  fact :  but  after  all  it  was  to  that  imaginative 
faculty  which  we  call  "  faith,"  that  I  must  look,  at  least  in 
part,  for  the  right  interpretation  of  fact.  That  Christ 
could  be  apprehended  only  by  faith  was  a  Pauline 
common-place  ;  but  that  Christ's  Resurrection  could  be 
grasped  only  by  faith,  and  not  by  the  acceptance  of 
evidence,  was,  to  me,  a  new  proposition.     But  I  gradually 

c 


iS  PERSONAL  [Letter  2 

perceived  that  it  was  true.  I  might  be  doubtful  whether 
Thomas  touched  the  side  of  the  risen  Saviour,  yet  sure 
that  Christ  had  risen  from  the  dead  in  the  Spirit,  and 
had  manifested  Himself  after  death  to  His  disciples. 
My  standard  of  certainty  being  thus  shifted,  many  things 
of  which  I  had  formerly  felt  certain  became  uncertain  ; 
but,  by  way  of  compensation,  other  things— and  these 
the  most  necessary  and  vital— became  more  certain 
than  ever.  I  felt  less  inclined  to  dogmatize  about  the 
existence  of  matter  ;  but  my  soul  was  imbued  with  a 
fuller  conviction  of  the  existence  of  a  God  ;  and  deeper 
still  became  the  feeling  that,  so  far  as  things  are  known 
to  me,  there  is  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  more  divine 
than  Christ. 

Thus  at  last  light  dawned  upon  my  darkness  ;  and  when 
the  sun  rose  once  more  upon  me,  it  was  the  same  sun  as 
before,  only  more  clearly  seen  above  the  mists  of  illusion 
which  had  before  obscured  it.  The  old  beliefs  of  my 
youth  and  childhood  remained  or  came  back  to  me,  ex- 
hibiting Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God, 
the  Eternal  Word  triumphant  over  death,  seated  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  Father  in  heaven,  the  source  of  life  and 
light  to  all  mankind.  Like  Christian  in  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress, I  found  myself  suddenly  freed  from  a  great  burden 
— a  burden  of  doubts,  and  provisos,  and  conditions  which, 
in  old  days,  had  seemed  to  forbid  me  from  accepting 
Jesus  as  the  Lord  and  Saviour  of  mankind  unless  I  could 
strain  my  conscience  to  accept  as  true  a  number  of  stories 
many  of  which  I  almost  certainly  knew  to  be  false.  In 
order  to  believe  in  Christ,  it  was  now  no  longer  needful 
to  believe  in  suspensions  of  the  laws  of  Nature  :  on  the 
contrary,  all  Nature  seemed  to  combine  to  prepare  the 
way  to  conform  humanity  to  that  image  of  God  which 
was  set  forth  in  the  Incarnation.  I  did  not,  as  some 
Christians  do,  ignore  the  existence  of  Satan  (and  almost 


Letter  2\  PERSONAL  19 

of  sin)  which  Christ  Himself  most  clearly  recognized  ; 
but  I  seemed  to  see  that  evil  was  being  gradually  sub- 
ordinated to  good,  and  falsehood  made  the  stepping-stone 
to  truth. 

Through  evil  to  good  ;  through  sin  to  a  righteousness 
higher  than  could  have  been  attained  save  through  sin  ; 
through  falsehood  to  the  truth  ;  through  superstition  to 
religion— this  seemed  to  me  the  divine  evolution  discern- 
ible in  the  light  that  was  shed  from  the  cross  of  Christ. 
No  longer  now  did  it  seem  impossible  or  absurd  that  the 
Gospel  of  the  Truth  might  have  been  temporarily 
obscured  by  illusions  or  superstitions  even  in  the  earliest 
times. 

I  think  it  must  be  now  some  ten  years  since  I  settled 
down  to  the  belief  that  the  history  of  Christianity  had 
been  the  history  of  profound  religious  truth,  contained 
in,  and  preserved  by,  illusions ;  an  ascent  of  worship 
through  illusion  to  the  truth.  A  belief  that  has  been 
fifteen  years  in  making,  and  for  ten  years  more  has  been 
reviewed,  criticized,  and  finally  retained  as  being  histori- 
cally true  and  spiritually  healthful,  you  must  not  call,  I 
think,  "a  transient  phase."  But  I  forgive  you  the 
expression.  A  dozen  pages  of  autobiography  are  a 
sufficient  penalty  for  three  offending  words. 


C  2 


KNOWLEDGE 


III 

My  dear , 

You  ask  me  to  explain,  in  detail,  what  I  mean  by 
asserting  that  the  Imagination  is  the  basis  of  knowledge. 
"  Apparently,"  you  say,  "  our  knowledge  of  the  world  ex- 
ternal to  ourselves  seems  to  you  to  spring,  not  from  the 
sensations  as  interpreted  by  the  Reason,  but  (at  all  events 
to  a  large  extent)  from  the  sensations  as  interpreted  by  the 
Imagination.  If  you  mean  this,  I  wish  you  would  show 
how  the  Imagination  thus  builds  up  our  knowledge  of 
the  world.     But  I  think  I  must  have  misunderstood  you." 

You  have  not  misunderstood  me.  I  would  go  even 
further  than  the  limits  of  your  statement :  for  I  believe 
that  we  are  largely  indebted  to  the  Imagination  for  our 
knowledge,  not  only  of  the  external  world,  but  also  of 
ourselves.  However,  suppose  we  first  take  a  simple 
instance  of  the  knowledge  of  external  things  :  "  This 
inkstand  is  hard.  How  did  I  come  to  know  that  it  was 
hard  ?     How  do  I  know  that  it  is  hard  now  ?  " 

Let  us  begin  from  the  beginning.  I  am  an  infant 
scrambling  on  the  floor  where  the  said  inkstand  is  casually 
lying.  Having  a  congenital  impulse  (commonly  called 
"instinct")  to  touch  and  suck  anything  that  comes  in  my 
way,  and  especially  anything  bright,  I  greedily  and  rapidly 
approximate  my  lips  to  the  corner  of  this  polished  object. 
I  recoil  with  a  sharp  shock  of  pain.  The  pain  abates. 
The  instinctive  recoil  from  the  inkstand  has  left  in  me  an 
instinctive  aversion  to  the  pain-causing  object  :  but  my 


Letter$\  KNOWLEDGE  21 

touching  and  sucking  instinct  again  revives,  and  as  soon 
as  it  prevails  over  the  recoiling  instinct,  I  am  impelled 
again  towards  the  inkstand,  not  so  rapidly  as  before,  but 
still  too  rapidly.  I  recoil  again,  with  pain  lessened  but 
still  acute.  I  am  acquiring  "knowledge:"  I  "know," 
though  I  cannot  put  it  into  words,  that  I  have  twice  found 
the  inkstand  not-to-be-rapidly-approached-under-penalty- 
of-a-certain-kind-of-pain,  in  other  words,  "  hard."  But  I 
try  again  ;  I  try  four,  five,  six  times  :  I  find  that  when  I 
approach  with  less  velocity  my  pain  is  less,  and  when  with 
sufficiently  diminished  velocity,  there  is  no  pain  at  all ;  I 
touch  and  suck  in  peace  :  but  when  I  forget  my  experience 
and  suppose  that  the  inkstand — even  though  I  dash  wildly 
at  it  after  my  old  fashion — will  "  behave  differently  this 
time,"  I  find  that  I  am  mistaken  :  the  inkstand  will  not 
"  behave  differently ; "  it  always  behaves  in  the  same 
way.  By  this  time  then  I  know  something  very  important 
indeed. 

But  pause  now,  my  friend,  and  ask  yourself  how  much 
this  infant  has  a  right  to  say  he  "knows,"  so  far  as  the 
evidence  of  the  senses  guides  him.  All  that  the  senses 
have  told  him  is  that  on  five,  six,  seven,  say  even  seventy, 
occasions,  he  found  the  inkstand  hard.  But  is  this  all 
that  he  "  knows  "  ?  You  know  perfectly  well  that  he  knows 
infinitely  more  :  he  has  made  a  leap  from  the  past  into 
the  future  and  knows  that  the  inkstand  will  be  found  hard 
whenever  he  touches  it.  When  he  grows  up  and  attains 
the  power  of  speech  he  will  generally  express  his  know- 
ledge in  the  Present  Tense  :  "  I  must  not  strike  the  ink- 
stand with  my  mouth  for  it  is  hard  :  "  but  in  reality  this 
"  is  "  implies  "  will  be  ; "  "I  must  not  strike  the  inkstand 
with  my  mouth  for  I  shall  find  it  hard."  Now  what  is  it 
that  has  produced  in  him  this  conviction  which  no  philo- 
sopher' can  justify  by  mere  logic,  but  which  every  baby 
acts  on  ?     It  seems  to  have  arisen  thus.     The  baby  has 


22  KNOWLEDGE  [Letter  3 

received  in  rapid  succession  two  sensations,  first,  that  of  a 
violent  approximation  to  the  inkstand,  secondly,  a  sudden 
shock  of  pain.  Having  received  this  pair  of  sensations 
very  frequently,  he  cannot  help  associating  them  together 
in  his  thoughts  ;  so  that  now  the  thought  of  a  violent 
approximation  to  the  inkstand  necessarily  suggests  to  him 
the  thought  that  it  is  not-to-be-approached-violently,  or 
"  hard."  He  began  by  learning  to  expect  that  perhaps,  or 
probably,  the  first  sensation  would  be  followed  by  the 
second  ;  but  having  found,  after  constant  experiments, 
that  the  second  sensation,  so  far  as  his  experience  goes, 
always  follows  the  first,  he  gradually  passes  from  belief 
into  certainty,  or  knowledge,  that  the  second  always 
will,  or  must,  follow  the  first. 

A  similar  transition  is  going  on  at  the  same  time  in  the 
infant's  mind — I  mean  the  transition  from  belief  to  certainty 
— in  regard  to  thousands  of  other  propositions  besides  the 
one  we  have  selected,  "this  inkstand  is  hard."  Every 
single  case  of  such  transition  facilitates  the  transition  in 
other  cases,  by  making  the  child  feel  that,  if  he  is  to  get 
on  in  the  world  and  make  his  way  through  it  without  in- 
curring the  constant  pains  and  penalties  of  Nature,  he 
must  not  disregard  these  juxtapositions,  or  pairs  of  sen- 
sations, (which,  when  he  grows  older,  he  will,  if  ever  he 
becomes  an  educated  man,  call  "  cause  "  and  "  effect "), 
but  must  take  them  to  heart  and  remember  them  ;  when 
the  first  of  a  familiar  pair  comes,  he  must  be  prepared  to 
find  the  second  immediately  following.  Not  unfrequently 
the  child's  limited  experience  associates  together  in  his 
mind  sensations  that  Nature  has  not  associated  ;  as,  for 
example,  when  he  infers  that  a  clock  must  tick  because 
he  has  never  yet  in  his  life  seen  a  clock  that  has  stopped. 
In  this  and  other  cases  the  child  has  afterwards  to  dis- 
sociate what  he  had  too  hastily  joined  together,  and  to 
correct  his  conclusions  by  wider  experience.     But,  on  the 


Letter  3]  KNOWLEDGE  23 

whole,  the  transition  from  belief  to  certainty,  in  an}'  one 
case,  is  facilitated  by  the  great  majority  of  similar  cases 
in  which  the  same  transition  is  going  on  with  results  that 
are  confirmed  by  his  own  experience  and  by  that  of  his 
elders.  What  helps  the  transition,  in  each  case,  is  its 
general  success ;  it  works :  it  helps  the  child  to  move 
more  and  more  confidently  in  the  world  without  subjecting 
himself  to  the  punishments  which  Nature  has  attached  to 
ignorance. 

Now  therefore,  reviewing  the  stages  of  the  progress 
upwards,  we  see  that  the  knowledge  of  which  we  are 
speaking  is  based  upon  an  inherent  and  fundamental 
belief  of  which  we  can  give  no  logical  justification  what- 
ever. Why  should  an  inkstand  always  be  hard  ?  The 
child  can  allege  no  reason  for  this  except  that,  having 
found  the  inkstand  to  be  hard  in  a  great  number  of  past 
instances,  he  is  compelled  to  believe  that  it  will  be  always 
hard,  with  such  a  force  of  conviction  that  he  cannot  but 
feel  and  say  he  "  knows  "  it.  But  of  course  there  is  no 
logical  justification  for  this  assertion.  He  might  argue 
for  some  months  or  even  years,  in  precisely  the  same  way 
about  a  clock,  and  say  that  "  a  clock  always  ticks,''  because 
he  has  seen  the  clock  tick  times  innumerable  and  never 
known  it  not  to  tick.  Why  should  not  a  larger  experience 
confute  his  so-called  knowledge  in  the  case  of  the  ink- 
stand as  in  the  case  of  the  clock  ?  As  the  clock  collapses, 
why  should  not  the  nature  of  the  inkstand  collapse — be, 
come  unwound,  so  to  speak,  or  altogether  transmuted  ? 
There  is  no  possible  answer  to  this  question  for  the 
child,  at  present,  exxept  the  following: — "It  never  has 
done  so,  and  therefore  I  believe  that  it  never  will.  I 
believe  in  the  uniformity  of  Nature.  The  sequences  of 
observed  cause  and  effect  are  Nature's  promises,  and  if 
she  does  not  keep  them,  life  will  break  down.  I  am  com- 
pelled to  believe,  and  to  act  on  the  belief,  that  life  will 


24  KNOWLEDGE  [Letter  3 

not  break  down.  I  believe  that  this  inkstand  is  hard, 
because  this  belief  works?  " 

I  conclude  therefore  that  all  knowledge  of  the  kind  we 
are  now  describing  is  based  on  belief  (viz.  the  belief  that 
what  has  been  will  be)  tested  by  experience.  I  think  it 
must  also  be  admitted  that  Imagination  contributed  to  the 
result :  for  the  child  not  only  remembers  his  two  past 
consecutive  sensations  but  gradually  images  in  his  mind  a 
kind  of  bond  between  them,  which  memory  pure  and 
simple  could  not  have  contributed.  Memory  reproduces 
"  Inkstand  and  then  hardness  ; "  Imagination  paints,  or 
begins  to  paint,  a  new  idea,  "  Inkstand  and  therefore  hard- 
ness." Again,  Memory  reproduces  vaguely  numerous  in- 
stances, "The  inkstand  was  hard  ten,  eleven,  twenty, 
many  times  ; "  then  comes  Imagination  and  at  a  leap 
sets  before  the  mind  an  entirely  new  notion,  and  invents 
for  it  the  word  "  always." 

Concerning  other  and  more  complex  kinds  of  knowledge 
what  need  is  there  to  say  a  word  ?  For  if  such  simple 
propositions  as  "  a  stone  is  hard,"  are  shown  to  depend 
upon  Imagination  for  suggesting,  and  Faith  for  retaining, 
a  conviction  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature,  much  more  must 
these  influences  be  presupposed  if  the  child  is  to  attain 
knowledge  about  matters  avowedly  future,  e.g.  "  the  sun 
will  rise  to-morrow."  In  reality  all  knowledge  of  an} 
practical  value  has  to  do  with  a  future,  immediate  or 
remote  ;  and  therefore  I  do  not  think  I  shall  be  exaggerat- 
ing in  saying  that  for  all  knowledge  about  things  outside 
us  we  depend  largely  upon  Imagination  and  Faith. 

But  I  pass  now  to  consider  a  child's  knowledge  about 
himself.  Take  for  example  such  a  proposition  as  this, 
"  I  like  sugar."  Is  Faith  or  Imagination  required  to  enable 
a  child  to  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  this  proposition 
about  himself?  I  think  so.  The  very  use  of  the  word 
"  I,"  if  used  intelligently,  appears  to  need  some  imagin- 


Letter  3]  KNOWLEDGE  25 

ative  effort.  Of  course  I  do  not  deny  that  this  subtle 
metaphysical  idea  may  have  been  suggested  to  us  origin- 
ally by  our  faculty  of  touch,  and  especially  the  faculty 
of  self-pinching  or  self-touching.  I  dare  say  you  have 
read  how  men  have  sometimes  caught  hold  of  their  own 
benumbed  hand  by  night,  and  awakened  a  household 
by  shouting  that  they  had  caught  a  robber :  has  it  ever 
occurred  to  you  that,  if  you  never  had  the  power  of  dis- 
tinguishing your  own  hand  from  anybody  else's  hand  by 
the  sense  of  touch,  you  might  have  gone  through  life  with 
no  sense,  or  with  a  very  tardily  acquired  sense,  of  your 
own  identity  ?  If  the  monkey  who  boiled  his  own  tail  in 
the  caldron  had  felt  no  pain,  might  he  not  have  been 
excused  for  doubting  sometimes  whether  the  tail  be- 
longed to  him  ?  And  if  his  head  were  equally  painless  or 
joyless  when  he  thumped  it  or  scratched  it,  ought  he  to  be 
condemned  for  disowning  his  own  head  ?  And  if  a 
monkey,  or  even  a  child,  could  not  lay  claim  to  its  own 
head,  it  seems  to  me  doubtful  whether  he  could  ever  claim 
such  a  separation  from  the  outside  world  as  would  necessi- 
tate his  using  the  word  "  I."  But,  as  it  is,  having  this 
self-pinching  faculty,  the  child  soon  finds  that  to  pinch  a 
ball,  or  a  bladder,  or  a  sister,  is  an  entirely  different  thing 
from  pinching  himself :  and  this  self-touching  faculty  con- 
firms the  evidence  suggested  by  the  bumps  and  thumps 
of  the  external  world  ;  all  of  which  lead  him  to  the  belief 
that  he  has  a  bodily  frame  of  his  own,  liable  to  pain  and 
to  pleasure,  and  largely  dependent  for  pain  and  pleasure 
on  his  own  motions,  which  motions  he  dimly  perceives 
dependent  upon  something  that  appears  to  be  inside 
himself. 

But  neither  this  nor  any  other  explanation  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  sensations  prepare  the  way  for  the 
construction  of  the  idea  of  the  "  I,"  ought  to  prevent  us 
from  recognizing  that  the  idea  itself  is  the  work  of  the 


26  KNOWLEDGE  {Letter  3 

Imagination,  and  not  of  the  unaided  sensations,  nor  of  the 
unaided  reason.  Self-pinching  and  contact  with  the  rough 
external  world  might  convince  the  child  that  he  was  differ- 
ent from  his  environment  at  the  time  when  he  made  his 
last  experiments  and  underwent  his  last  experiences  ;  but 
they  could  not  convince  him  that  he  is  different  now,  or 
that  he  will  be  different  in  the  next  instant ;  and  for  this 
conviction  he  depends  upon  faith.  Again,  the  imagination 
of  the  "  I  "  seems  closely  bound  up  with  two  other  nearly 
simultaneous  imaginations,  those  of  Force  and  Cause. 
First  he  feels  a  desire  to  touch  the  inkstand,  then  he  feels 
himself  moving  towards  the  inkstand,  then  he  feels  the 
inkstand  touched.  These  sequences  of  desire,  action, 
result,  he  can  repeat  as  often  as  he  likes.  By  their  fre- 
quency therefore,  as  well  as  by  their  vividness,  they 
impress  him  more  powerfully  than  sequences  of  pheno- 
mena not  dependent  on  himself;  and  it  is  from  these 
probably  that  he  first  imagines  the  idea  of  "  must,"  or 
"  necessity,"  or  "  cause  and  effect."  If  he  feels  a  desire  to 
move  a  limb,  the  motion  of  the  limb  immediately  follows  ; 
it  always  obeys  him  ;  it  must  obey  him.  He  pushes  a 
brick  ;  what  caused  the  brick  to  fall  ?  He  feels  that  it 
was  his  own  force  that  caused  it  ;  he  no  longer  looks  upon 
the  push  and  the  fall  as  if  the  former  merely  preceded 
the  latter  ;  he  imagines  a  connection  of  necessity  between 
the  push  and  the  fall,  the  cause  and  the  effect,  and  gradu- 
ally comes  to  imagine  himself  as  the  causer  of  the  cause. 
But  all  these  imaginations  are  mere  imaginations,  not 
proofs.  To  gather  together  all  the  sensations  of  which 
he  retains  the  memory,  the  sensations  of  which  he  is  at 
present  conscious,  and  the  sensations  to  which  he  looks 
forward,  and  to  put  an  "  I  "  behind  or  below  all  these,  as 
the  foundation  of  them  all,  and  partial  causer  of  them  all 
— what  an  audacious  assumption  is  this  !  Not  Plato  and 
Aristotle  combined  could  prove  to  a  child,  or  to  the  most 


Letter  3]  KNOWLEDGE  27 

consummate  of  philosophers,  that  he  has  a  right  to  call 
himself  "  I,"  or  that  he  is  any  other  than  a  machine  and  a 
part  of  the  universal  machinery.  How  can  I  prove  and 
vindicate  my  independence,  my  right  to  an  "  I  "  ?  By  saying 
that  I  will  do,  or  not  do,  and  by  then  doing,  or  not  doing, 
any  conceivable  thing  at  any  conceivable  time  ?  Such 
an  attempt  is  futile.  The  retort  is  unanswerable  :  "  In  the 
great  machine  which  you  call  the  universe,  that  small 
part  which  you  call  '  I '  was  so  constructed  and  wound 
up  that  it  could  no  more  help  saying  and  doing  what 
it  did  and  said,  than  a  clock  could  help  pointing  and 
striking." 

What  thqn  is  the  real  proof  that  we  are  right  in  using 
the  word  "  I ';  and  in  distinguishing  ourselves  from  other 
objects  which  we  call  external  ?  There  is  no  proof  at  all 
except  that,  first,  we  are  led  to  this  way  of  looking  at 
things  by  Nature  and  Imagination,  and  secondly,  this  way 
of  looking  at  things  works  best.  The  "  I-view  "  is  better 
fitted  than  the  "  machine-view "  to  develop  in  us  the 
faculties  of  judgment  and  self-control,  to  give  us  a  sense 
of  responsibility  and  a  capability  of  amendment,  and  to 
make  us  ultimately  more  hopeful  and  more  active.  So 
too,  the  belief  in  "  cause  and  effect  "  works  better  than  a 
mere  mental  record  of  past  antecedents  and  sequences, 
accompanied  by  a  blank  and  strictly  logical  neutrality  of 
mind  as  to  what  will  happen  in  the  future.  Faith  in 
"cause  and  effect"  is  the  foundation  of  all  stable  life  and 
all  regular  progress  alike  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
state.  The  unfaithful  unbeliever  in  causality  is  the  Esau, 
both  in  the  moral  and  in  the  intellectual  world,  the  happy- 
go-lucky  hunter  who  depends  on  stray  venison  and  refuses 
to  resort  to  system  in  order  to  make  a  sure  provision 
for  the  needs  of  the  future ;  the  believer  is  the  quiet  plod- 
ding Jacob  who  has  his  goats  in  the  fold  where  he  knows 
he  can  find  them  when  wanted.     The  unbeliever  is  the 


28  KNOWLEDGE  [Letter  3 

unimaginative  savage  who  has  not  faith  enough  to  see  the 
harvest  in  the  seed  ;  the  believer  is  the  man  of  civilisation 
who  can  trust  Nature  through  six  long  months  of  waiting 
and  can  say  to  her,  not  in  the  language  of  hope,  "  do  id 
des,"  but  in  the  language  of  conviction,  "do  daturae." 
Nevertheless,  convenient  as  these  ideas  may  be  for  our 
comfort,  nay,  though  they  may  be  even  necessary  for  our 
existence,  we  are  bound  to  recollect  that  they  are  merely 
ideas.  Like  the  ideas  of  force,  cause,  effect,  necessity, 
so  the  idea  of  "  I," — though  produced  with  the  aid  of 
experience  and  tested  by  appeal  to  experience  and  reason 
— appears  to  be  nothing  but  a  child  of  the  Imagination, 
and  a  foster-child  of  Faith. 

Perhaps  your  conclusion  from  all  this  is  that  I  am 
proving  that  we  can  know  nothing?  Not  in  the  least. 
What  I  am  saying  does  not  prove  that  we  know  less  or 
more  than  we  profess  to  know  at  present.  I  am  merely 
showing  that  our  knowledge  comes  to  us  from  sources 
other  than  those  which  are  ordinarily  assumed. 


IDEALS  29 


IV 

My  dear , 

You  ask  me  to  pass  to  the  consideration  of 
knowledge  of  a  new  kind,  knowledge  of  mathematical 
truth.  "  Here  at  least,"  you  say,  "  severe  reasoning 
dominates  Supreme,  and  Imagination  has  no  place." 
"  Two  and  one  make  there,"  "  The  angles  at  the  base  of 
an  isosceles  triangle  are  equal :  "  "  surely  we  may  assume 
that  Imagination  has  nothing  to  do  with  these  proposi- 
tions. They  must  be  decided  by  pure  Reason."  Never 
was  assumption  more  grotesque.  Excuse  me  ;  but  by  what 
other  adjective  can  I  characterize  the  statement  that  the 
Imagination  has  "nothing  to  do  with"  propositions  for 
the  very  terms  of  which  we  are  indebted  to  the  Imagina- 
tion ?  I  maintain  without  fear  of  contradiction  that  the 
knowledge  of  these  propositions  requires  an  effort  of  the 
Imagination  so  severe  that  the  very  young  and  the 
completely  untrained  cannot  attain  to  it. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  what  do  you  mean  by  "  one," 
"two,"  and  "  three  "  ?  I  have  never  had  any  experience 
of  such  things  ;  nor  have  you  ;  nor  can  you.  "  Two  " 
oranges,  "two"  apples,  and  the  like,  we  have  had 
experience  of,  and  can  realize  ;  but  to  think  of  "  one  "  or 
"  two  "  by  themselves  ("  one  "  or  "  two  "  with  "  anythings, 
or  with  "nothings"  after  them),  "one"  or  "two"  as 
"  abstract  ideas  "—this  really  is  a  most  difficult  or  rather 
(I  am  inclined  to  say)  an  impossible  task.     When  I  say 


30  IDEALS  [Letter  4 

"one"  and  "two,"  I  think  I  see  before  me  dimly  "one" 
or  "two"  dots  or  small  strokes,  and  I  perceive  that  two 
and  one  of  these  dots  or  strokes  make  up  three  dots  or 
strokes.  When  I  speak  of  "  twenty  "  and  "  thirty,"  I  do 
not  see  any  images  of  these  existences  ;  and  when  I 
say  that  "  twenty  "  and  "  thirty  "  make  "  fifty,''  I  do  not 
realize  the  process  of  addition  at  all  visibly  ;  I  merely 
repeat  the  statement  on  the  authority  of  previous  obser- 
vations and  reasonings  mostly  made  by  others  and  not  by 
myself.  But  so  far  as  I  approximate  to  the  realization  of 
an  abstract  number,  I  do  it  by  a  kind  of  negative  imagin- 
ation. And  in  any  case  we  can  hardly  deny  that  all 
arithmetical  propositions,  since  they  employ  terms  that 
denote  mere  imaginary  ideas,  must  be  regarded  as  based 
on  the  imagination. 

It  is  the  same  with  Geometry.  The  whole  of  what  we 
call  "  Euclid  "  is  based  upon  a  most  aerial  effort  of  the 
Imagination.  We  have  to  imagine  lines  without  thick- 
ness, straightness  that  does  not  deviate  the  billionth  part 
of  an  inch  from  perfect  evenness,  perfectly  symmetrical 
circles,  and— climax  of  audacity  ! — points  that  have  "  no 
parts  and  no  magnitude  !  "  Obviously  these  things  have 
no  existence  except  in  the  dreams  of  Imagination  ;  yet 
Euclid's  severe  reasoning  applies  to  none  but  these  things. 
If  you  step  from  your  ideal  triangle  in  Dreamland  into 
your  material  triangle  in  chalk-land,  you  step  from  abso- 
lute truth  into  statements  that  are  not  absolutely  true. 
The  angles  at  the  base  of  your  chalk  isosceles  triangle 
are  not  exactly  equal,  if  you  measure  them  with  sufficient 
accuracy.  In  a  word  the  whole  of  Geometry  is  an  appeal 
to  the  Imagination  in  which  the  geometer  says  to  us,  "  I 
know  that  my  propositions  are  not  exactly  true  except 
with  respect  to  invisible,  ideal,  and  imaginary  figures, 
planes,  and  solids.  These  ideas,  therefore,  you  must 
endeavour  to  imagine.     In  order  to  relieve  the  strain  on 


Letter  \\  IDEALS  31 

your  imagination,  I  will  place  before  you  material  and 
visible  figures  about  which  my  reasoning  will  be  ap- 
proximately true.  From  these  I  must  ask  you  to  try  to 
rise  upward  to  the  imagination  of  their  archetypes,  the 
immaterial  realities." 

What  shall  we  reply  to  our  overbearing  mathematician 
who  in  this  abrupt  and  audacious  manner  introduces  the 
non-existent  and  imaginary  creatures  of  his  brain  as 
being  "  realities  "  ?  Shall  we  deride  him,  and  the  arith- 
metician likewise  ?  Shall  we  bid  the  latter  exchange  his 
calculations  in  abstract  numbers  for  manifestly  useful 
sums  about  sacks  of  wheat  and  casks  of  beer  ?  Shall  we 
bid  the  mathematician  descend  from  his  high  geometrical 
theories  to  the  practical  measurements  of  agriculture  ? 
Pouring  scorn  on  his  avowal  that  the  objects  of  his 
reasoning  are  "  invisible,  ideal,  and  imaginary,"  shall  we 
decline  to  study  a  science  that  is  confessedly—  so  we  can 
word  it — visionary  and  illusive  ?  If  we  do,  he  will  not  be 
without  a  reply,  somewhat  after  this  fashion :  "  My 
practical  friends,  it  will  be  the  worse  for  you  if  you 
despise  these  invisible,  ideal  and  imaginary  objects.  I 
say  nothing  about  the  mental  training  and  development 
to  be  derived  from  the  study  of  these  things  ;  for  to  this 
argument  you  do  not  appear  to  me  to  be  at  present 
accessible  :  but  I  will  take  your  own  line — the  practical. 
Do  you  then  want  to  measure  your  fields  with  ease  and  to 
make  accurate  maps  and  charts  ;  to  construct  houses  that 
shall  stand  longer,  ships  that  shall  sail  faster,  cannon  that 
shall  shoot  further,  engines  that  shall  pull  harder,  than 
any  known  before  ;  do  you  want  to  utilize  electricity  for 
lighting,  gas  for  motion,  water  for  pressure  ;  in  a  word  do 
you  wish  to  make  yourselves  lords  over  the  material 
world  and  to  have  all  the  forces  of  Nature  at  your  beck 
and  call  ?  If  you  do,  you  must  not  despise  the  non- 
existent  numbers   of  my  arithmetical  brother,   nor  my 


32  IDEALS  [Letter  4 

immaterial  and  imaginary  lines.  Give  me  leave  to  repeat, 
in  spite  of  your  indignation,  that  though  they  are  (in  this 
present  visible  world  of  ours)  non-existent,  yet  these  lines 
and  numbers  are  '  realities.'  That  they  are  realities,  and 
that  our  conclusions  about  them  are  real  and  true,  is 
proved  by  the  one  test  of  truth  :  our  conclusions  work. 
Our  discoveries  are  in  harmony  with  the  universe.  A 
perfect  circle  you  never  saw  and  never  will  see  :  yet  it  is 
as  real  as  a  beefsteak  and  a  pint  of  porter.  I  believe  in 
a  perfect  circle  by  Faith  ;  I  accept  it  with  reverence  as 
an  impression,  if  I  may  so  dare  to  speak,  on  the  Mind  of 
the  Universe,  which  He  has  communicated  to  me.  What 
is  more.  I  believe  that  He  intended  us  to  study  this  and 
other  immaterial  realities  that  our  minds  might  approxi- 
mate to  His.  Take  a  cone,  my  practical  friends.  What 
do  you  see  in  it  ?  Nothing,  I  fear,  except  a  shape  that 
reminds  you  of  an  extinguisher  or  a  fool's  cap.  Yet  this 
little  solid  contains  within  itself  the  suggestions  of  all 
the  mysteries  of  motion  in  heaven  and  earth.  Slice  your 
cone  parallel  to  the  base  :  there  you  have  the  perfect 
circle.  Slice  it  again,  parallel  to  one  of  the  sides  :  there 
you  have  the  parabola,  the  curve  of  terrestrial  motion. 
Slice  it  once  more,  midway  between  these  two  sections  : 
there  you  have  the  ellipse,  the  curve  of  celestial  motion 
for  which  all  the  astronomers  were  seeking  in  vain 
through  something  like  a  score  of  centuries.  Seriously 
now,  my  half-educated  friends,  in  spite  of  the  sense  you 
may  for  the  most  part  entertain  of  your  own  importance, 
do  you  not  in  your  more  modest  moods  sometimes  feel 
inclined  to  say  that,  'A  circle  is,  after  all,  a  reality, 
perhaps  more  real  than  I  am  myself  ? " 

What  do  you  think  of  all  this  ?  For  my  part,  I  am 
inclined  to  think  the  Mathematician  has  the  best  of  it. 
A  good  deal  will  turn  upon  the  meaning  of  that  dangerous 
word  "reality,"  about  which  I  will  give  you  my  notions, 


Letter /&  IDEALS  33 

perhaps,  hereafter.1  But  even  if  you  dispute  his  assertions 
about  the  reality  of  his  "  ideas,"  you  cannot,  I  am  sure, 
deny  the  immense  practical  importance,  as  well  as  the 
universal  acceptance,  of  his  conclusions  and  discoveries  ; 
and  you  will  do  well  to  remember  that  this  immensely 
important,  this  undisputed  and  indisputable  knowledge, 
could  never  have  been  attained  if  we  had  not  called  in  the 
Imagination  to  create  for  us  ideas  that  never  will  be,  and 
never  can  be,  realised  in  this  present  material  world. 

Let  us  pass  now  from  knowledge  about  things  to  know- 
ledge about  persons,  i.e.  about  actions  and  motives. 

Our  knowledge  about  actions  depends  on  (1)  personal 
observation  ;  (2)  testimony  ;  (3)  circumstantial  evidence 
or  any  combination  of  these  three. 

The  knowledge  that  we  derive  of  actions  from  our  own 
observation  is  of  course  independent  of  Faith,  so  far  as 
concerns  the  past  ;  but  it  is  very  limited,  and  entirely 
useless  and  unpractical,  except  as  a  basis  for  knowledge 
about  the  present  and  future  ;  for  which  knowledge  (as  we 
have  seen)  Faith  in  the  permanence  of  Nature  is  absolutely 
necessary. 

The  knowledge  of  actions  that  comes  to  us  from 
evidence,  direct  and  circumstantial,  is  largely  dependent 
on  Faith.  "  Julius  Caesar  invaded  Britain  " — how  certain 
we  all  feel  of  that  !  Yet  how  slight  the  testimony ! 
Simply  a  few  pages  of  narrative,  written  by  the  supposed 
invader  himself,  and  some  casual  remarks  by  one  or  two 
contemporary  letter -writers  about  Caesar's  doings  in 
Britain  and  the  Senate's  reception  of  the  news.  Why 
should  we  believe  on  so  apparently  flimsy  a  basis  ?  Why 
should  not  Caesar  have  sent  one  of  his  lieutenants  to  in- 
vade the  island,  and  afterwards  have  taken  the  credit  of 
it  himself?  Or  there  might  have  been  no  invasion  at  all, 
nothing  but  a   reconnaissance  grossly  exaggerated   and 

1  See  the  Definitions  at  the  end  of  the  book. 


34  IDEALS  [Letter  4 

intermixed  with  facts  derived  from  travellers.  Yet  we 
believe  in  the  invasion  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 
Caesar,  we  say,  would  not  have  told  the  lie  ;  or,  if  he  had, 
it  would  have  been  quickly  exposed  by  his  enemies.  In 
other  words,  we  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  narrative, 
because  a  belief  in  its  falsehood  does  not  "  work,"  that 
is  to  say,  does  not  suit  with  what  we  know  (or,  more  pro- 
perly, with  what  others  know)  of  Caesar's  character  and 
Caesar's  times.  Of  precisely  the  same  kind  is  almost  all 
our  knowledge  about  history :  it  is  based  upon  evidence, 
but  it  is  belief ;  and  the  only  test  of  its  truth  is,  does  it 
"  work,"  i.e.  does  it  fit  in  with  other  knowledge  which  we 
regard  as  established  truth  ? 

But  you  see  that,  even  in  dealing  with  a  simple  action  of 
Caesar's,  we  have  already  drifted  into  a  reference  to  Caesar's 
motives:  and  obviously  knowledge  about  "motives"  is 
an  important  and  indeed  a  paramount  element  in  know- 
ledge about  persons.  "  My  father,"  says  the  child,  "  has 
his  brows  knit ;  his  face  looks  dark  ;  he  speaks  very  loud  ; 
his  eyes  look  brighter  than  usual  :  " — this  is  knowledge 
about  actions  derived  from  personal  observation,  but,  so 
far,  perfectly  useless,  until  something  is  added  to  it. 
"  Whenever  my  father  has  looked  and  spoken  like  this 
before,  he  has  been  angry  and  has  punished  somebody  : 
therefore  he  is  angry  and  will  punish  somebody  now  " — 
this  is  not  knowledge,  it  is  only  belief ;  but  it  is  belief  not 
about  actions  simply,  but  about  motives  as  well  as  actions, 
and  it  may  be  of  the  greatest  use. 

How  do  we  gain  knowledge  about  motives,  the  moving 
powers  of  the  human  machine  ?  Since  we  cannot  take 
this  machinery  to  pieces,  or  experiment  with  it  freely,  we 
must  derive  our  knowledge  largely  from  the  consciousness 
of  our  own  motives.  Tickling  produces  laughter  in  us, 
and  pricking,  a  cry  ;  affection,  and  the  command  of  those 
whom  we  love,  produce  in  us  obedience  ;  desire  of  a  result 


Letter  4]  IDEALS  35 

or  reward  produces  effort ;  fear  of  pain  or  penalty  pro- 
duces avoidance  of  certain  actions,  performance  of  others. 
Hence  we  infer  that,  in  others  also,  similar  effects  have 
been  produced,  or  will  be  produced,  by  similar  causes. 
In  either  case,  our  inference  is  based  partly  upon  our 
observation  that  these  causes  have  preceded  these  effects 
in  other  persons,  and  partly  upon  our  faith  that  other 
people's  machinery  is  like  our  own. 

But  we  have  not  yet  touched  one  of  the  most  powerful 
of  motives,  that  power  within  us  which  we  call  Conscience 
("joint-knowledge");  as  though  there  were  in  us  an 
Assessor  sitting  in  judgment  by  the  side  of  the  mysterious 
"  I,"  the  two  together  pronouncing  sentence  of  "  Right " 
or  "Wrong"  upon  the  several  propositions  and  intentions 
which  are,  as  it  were,  called  up  before  their  tribunal. 
The  development  of  Conscience  and  our  sensibility  to  its 
dictation  appears  to  me  largely  due  to  the  Imagination. 
If  a  philosopher  tells  me  that  when  Conscience  appears 
to  us  to  say  "Right"  it  really  says  "Expedient  for 
society  and  ultimately  for  yourself,"  or  "Calculated  to 
gain  esteem  for  yourself,"  or  "  Conducive  to  your  own 
peace  of  mind,"  I  am  obliged,  with  all  deference  to  him, 
but  with  greater  deference  to  truth,  to  assure  him  that 
(however  correct  he  may  be  as  to  the  origin  of  this  feeling 
in  my  own  infant  mind  or  in  the  matured  mind  of  my 
primaeval  ancestors)  he  is  mistaken,  at  all  events  in  my  own 
case,  as  to  the  action  of  Conscience  now.  I  may  possibly 
have  been  long  ago  guided  to  my  idea  of  "  Right "  by 
my  observation  of  what  is  expedient :  but,  to  me,  now,  the 
sense  of  "  right "  is  as  different  from  the  sense  of  "  ex- 
pedient," as  the  eye  is  different  from  some  sensitive 
protuberance  which  may  ultimately  be  developed  into  an 
eye,  but  is  at  present  responsive  only  to  the  touch. 

How  then  do  we  gain  this  knowledge  of  right  and 
wrong  ?     For  of  course  it  is  not  enough  to  reply  that  we 


36  IDEALS  [Letter  4 

gain  it  by  the  voice  of  Conscience  :  such  an  answer  only- 
makes  us  repeat  our  question  in  a  different  shape  :  "  In  the 
very  young,  Conscience,  though  it  may  be  existent,  is  cer- 
tainly latent ;  when  and  whence  does  it  begin  to  work  ?  ' ' 
I  should  reply  that  the  first  idea  of  good  and  evil  is  com- 
municated to  the  very  young  through  the  habit  of  obe- 
dience to  their  parents  or  those  who  stand  to  them  in 
the  parental  position.  A  child  is  so  created  as  to  be  in 
constant  dependence  on  the  favour  and  good-will  of  his 
mother.  When  he  is  obedient  to  her  he  finds  himself  at 
peace  and  happy,  and  he  welcomes  on  her  face  that  sun- 
shine which  indicates  that  she  is  pleased  with  him.  When 
he  is  disobedient,  harsh  sounds  follow,  a  lowering  dark- 
ness on  the  countenance  close  to  his,  obstacles  to  his 
freedom,  restrictions  of  his  pleasures,  perhaps  sharper 
pains  or  penalties  :  and  he  is  now  out  of  harmony  with 
his  little  Universe.  All  this  strange  and  subtle  evil  inside 
him  and  outside  him  he  has  brought  on  himself  by  dis- 
obeying the  maternal  will  ;  and  hence  there  gradually 
springs  up  in  his  mind  an  Imagination  of  some  unname- 
able  thing,  which  is  his  first  idea  of  right.  But  as  he 
grows  older  and  widens  his  sphere  of  observation  he 
finds — if  he  is  placed  in  anything  like  those  favourable 
circumstances  which  Nature  has  appointed  for  most  of 
us — that  this  parental  will  is  in  harmony  with  the  widen- 
ing world  around  him.  The  parents  say,  "  Do  not  play 
with  fire  ; "  Nature  says  the  same,  and  punishes  him  if 
he  transgresses.  The  parents  say,  "  Do  not  touch  that 
knife  ; "  again  Nature  confirms  their  authority  by  inflicting 
a  penalty  on  disobedience.  Thus,  if  the  parents  have 
anything  of  parental  forethought,  the  child  gradually 
associates  them  with  the  governing  powers  of  his  growing 
Universe,  and  begins  to  feel  that  the  parental  will  is  also 
the  will,  or  order,  of  Nature.  They  are  as  God  to  him  : 
and  the  confirmed  habit  of  obedience  to  them  deepens  in 


Letter  4]  IDEALS  37 

his  heart  the  conviction — but  still  a  conviction  rather 
springing  from  Imagination  than  from  Reason — that  the 
power  which  thus  induces  him  to  obey  is  a  great  and 
grand  Power,  orderly,  not  to  be  resisted ;  wise  and 
justified  by  results,  but  to  be  obeyed  without  thinking 
about  results  ;  it  ought  to  be  obeyed  ;  it  is  Right. 

Now  he  steps  out  into  the  world  of  other  human 
beings  ;  and  here  he  learns  to  widen  his  idea  of  Right. 
Perhaps  he  also  learns  to  alter  it.  If  he  was  born  and 
reared  among  thieves,  his  conscience  may  have  been  alto- 
gether perverted  so  that  he  actually  thought  it  honourable 
to  steal.  But  in  any  case,  even  though  he  may  come  from 
the  best  of  homes,  he  often  learns  that  the  parental  will 
is  not  always  in  harmony  with  the  highest  and  best  will  ; 
and  gradually  he  forms  a  different  standard  of  "  Right " 
from  that  which  he  held  before.  It  was  once  the  will  of 
his  parents,  now  it  is  often  the  will  of  Society.  Conforming 
himself  to  the  will  of  Society  he  is  free  from  pains  and 
penalties  ;  he  is  at  peace  with  those  around  him,  and  he 
is  generally  at  peace  with  himself.  I  say  generally,  not 
always  :  for  by  this  time  he  has  begun  to  think  for  himself 
and  to  see  that  Conscience  ought  to  speak  in  the  interests 
not  merely  of  his  parents,  nor  of  a  select  circle  of  his  own 
friends  or  companions,  but  of  all  mankind.  His  Imagina- 
tion pictures  for  him  an  ideal  Order  such  as  he  has  never 
actually  experienced.  He  feels  that  he  "  ought "  to  be 
at  peace  and  in  harmony  with  this  imaginary  Order,  and 
not  with  some  distorted  and  narrowed  conception  of  it 
conveyed  to  him  by  his  "set,"  his  class,  his  city,  his 
nation,  or  his  church.  In  his  conscience,  he  hears  the 
voice  of  this  Moral  Order  of  humanity.  Hence  it  is 
that  men  have  been  sometimes  impelled  to  thoughts 
beyond,  or  even  against,  the  conscience  of  their  contem- 
poraries ;  to  protest,  for  example,  against  unjust  wars, 
against  war  of  any  kind,  against  slavery,  against  duelling, 


38  IDEALS  [Letter  4 

against  legalized  oppression.  In  every  case  the  impelling 
power  has  been  the  same,  a  sense  of  discord  between  the 
man's  imaginary  ideal  and  the  actual  environment  in 
which  these  evils  and  disorders  have  existed.  Others,  his 
commonplace  companions,  have  been  content  to  go  with  the 
world  around  them — to  be  kind  slave-holders,  honourable 
duellists,  moderate  oppressors— and  they  have  felt  no 
pangs  of  conscience.  But  by  a  few,  a  chosen  few,  there 
has  been  acquired  a  keener  sense  of  the  ideal  of  moral 
harmony,  a  keener  eye  for  detecting  moral  disorder,  and 
an  abhorrence  of  it  which  will  not  permit  them  to  live  in 
peace  amid  such  evils :  they  must  either  die  or  mend 
them. 

They  often  do  die  in  mending  them  ;  but  while  in  the 
process  of  dying,  or  preparing  for  death — with  all  de- 
ference to  the  clergyman  who  lately  maintained  that  "  if 
there  is  no  hereafter,  and  if  the  only  reward  of  self-sac- 
rifice and  the  only  punishment  of  crime  are  those  which 
happen  in  the  present  life,  it  would  have  been  far  better  to 
have  been  Fouche  than  Paul"— they  have  at  least  a  peace 
of  mind  which  they  could  not  have  attained  by  conformity 
with  the  world.  The  grosser  conscience  that  "  worked  " 
well  enough  in  their  companions  would  not  have  "  worked  " 
in  them.  Even,  therefore,  though  they  appear  to  be  ex- 
ceptions to  the  rule  that  tests  truth  by  its  "working," 
they  are  not  really  exceptional.  They  have  been  in 
discord  with  the  world  but  in  concord  with  themselves. 
Often  they  prove  to  others  the  truth  of  their  conceptions 
by  raising  up  the  world  to  their  level,  and  by  pointing  to 
the  moral  order  which  has  issued  from  the  fulfilment  of 
their  ideas.  But  in  any  case,  though  they  may  fail  for 
a  time  or  (apparently)  for  all  time,  they  have  had  in 
themselves  a  sufficient  test  of  the  truth  of  their  ideas  : 
they  have  followed  their  conscience  and  they  have  found 
that   this  course  " worked" — that  is  to  say,  suited  and 


Letter  4]  IDEALS  39 

developed  their  nature — as  no  other  course  could  have 
worked  for  them.  But  in  order  thus  to  hear  and  obey  the 
voice  of  conscience  and  to  discern  its  highest  truths, 
how  much  of  faith,  how  much  of  imagination  has  been 
needed  ! 

But  this  digression  about  Conscience  has  led  me  a  little 
astray  from  my  subject,  which  was  "  the  knowledge  of 
persons  :  "  I  must  return  to  it  in  my  next  letter. 


4Q  IDEALS  AND  TESTS 


V 
My  dear , 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  the 
'•  knowledge  of  persons."  How  do  we  gain  knowledge  of 
a  human  being,  that  is  to  say  of  his  motives  ?  "  By  observ- 
ing his  actions  in  many  different  circumstances,  especially 
in  extremities  of  joy,  sorrow,  fear,  temptation,  and  then  by 
comparing  his  actions  with  what  we,  or  others,  have  done 
in  the  same  circumstances  ?  "  But  this  is  a  very  difficult 
and  delicate  business,  especially  that  part  of  it  which 
involves  comparison.  Here  we  may  easily  go  wrong  ; 
and  we  therefore  naturally  ask  what  test  have  we  that 
our  knowledge  is  correct.  One  test  of  any  useful  know- 
ledge of  a  machine  would  be,  not  our  power  to  discourse 
fluently  about  it,  but  our  power  to  "  work  "  it,  i.e.  to  make 
it  perform  the  work  for  which  it  is  intended  :  and  similarly 
one  test  of  useful  knowledge  of  a  human  being  must  be 
our  power  to  "  work  "  him,  i.e.  to  make  him  perform  the 
work  for  which  he  is  intended.  A  perfectly  selfish  man 
of  the  world  may  have  considerable  knowledge  of  men 
and  "  work  "  them  cleverly  in  a  certain  sense  :  he  is  not 
cheated  by  them  ;  he  is  perhaps  obeyed  by  some,  not 
thwarted  by  others  ;  he  knows  the  weak  points  of  all, 
jostles  down  one,  persuades  another  to  lift  him  up,  gets 
something  out  of  every  one,  and  is,  in  a  word,  largely 
successful  in  making  men  help  him  to  do  what  he  i?i- 
tends.  But  this  is  a  very  poor  kind  of  "  working,"  as 
compared  with   that  which  has  been   practised  by  the 


Letter  5]  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  41 

lawgivers,  poets,  philosophers,  and  founders  of  religion  ; 
who  have  moulded  and  fashioned  great  masses  of  men  so 
as  to  be  better  able  than  they  were  before  to  do  the  noblest 
works  that  men  can  do,  the  works  for  which  they  are 
intended.  Now  I  think  it  will  not  be  denied  that  the  men 
who,  in  this  sense,  have  "worked"  mankind  have  had 
great  ideas  of  what  men  could  do  and  ought  to  do. 
Sometimes  they  have  had  ideas  so  high  that  they  have 
seemed  impossible  of  attainment  and  almost  absurd,  even 
as  ideas.  Yet  these  are  the  .men,  these  idealizers  of  human- 
ity, who  have  most  helped  mankind  on  the  path  of  pro- 
gress. And  this  would  lead  us  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
men  who  have  "  worked  "  mankind  best  have  been  those 
who  have  refused  to  accept  men  as  they  are.  Constrained 
by  the  Imagination,  they  have  kept  before  their  eyes  an 
Ideal  of  humanity,  towards  which  they  have  aspired  and 
laboured  with  sanguine  enthusiasm. 

To  the  same  effect  tends  our  observation  of  mankind 
in  smaller  groups,  and  especially  in  that  smallest  of 
groups  called  the  family.  It  is  generally  the  parents  who 
have  most  influence  over  their  child,  most  power  to 
"work"  him;  and  we  can  often  see  that  the  reason  of 
their  influence  does  not  arise  from  the  power  to  reward  or 
punish,  but  from  their  affection  for  him,  and  from  their 
faith  in  him.  Especially  do  we  perceive  this  in  the 
familiar  but  mysterious  process  called  forgiving.  We 
see  parents,  yes  even  wise  parents,  constantly  placing 
faith  in  a  child  beyond  what  seems  to  a  dispassionate  ob- 
server to  be  warranted  by  facts,  treating  him  as  though 
he  were  better  than  he  has  shewn  himself  to  be,  better 
than  he  appears  to  us  likely  ever  to  become.  And, 
strange  to  say,  this  imaginative  system  has  on  the  whole 
proved  more  successful  than  the  impartial  and  dispassion- 
ate disposition  which  would  take  a  human  being  exactly 
for  what  he  is,  and  treat  him  as  being  that  and  no  more. 


42  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  [Letter  5 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  have  not  been  blind  and 
fond  parents  in  abundance  who— having  no  high  moral 
standard  and  being  merely  desirous  to  see  comfort  and 
bright  faces  around  them— have  done  their  children  harm 
by  ignoring  their  faults  and  regarding  them  as  perfect :  but 
on  the  other  hand,  I  call  on  you  to  admit  the  paradox  that 
just,  wise,  and  righteous  parents,  who  have  had  a  high 
moral  standard,  have  been  most  successful  in  enabling 
their  child  to  rise  to  that  standard,  by  treating  him  as 
though  he  were  better  than  he  really  has  been.  Further, 
I  say  that  this  system  has  been  pursued  by  all  those  who 
have  forgiven  others,  and  by  Him  above  all  others  who 
has  done  most  to  make  forgiveness  "  current  coin " 
among  mankind. 

I  can  understand  a  man  of  cold-blooded  and  dispas- 
sionate temperament  objecting  to  any  such  idealization  of 
humanity.  "  The  whole  theory,"  he  might  say,  "  is  radically 
unfair  and  unreasonable.  You  argue  that  you  ought  to 
love  a  man  and  ignore  his  faults  if  you  wish  to  know  him 
and  move  him.  You  might  just  as  well  argue  that  you 
ought  to  hate  a  man  and  ignore  his  virtues  for  the  same 
purpose.  Hate  is  as  keen-eyed  as  love.  Hate  spies  out 
the  least  defects,  anticipates  each  false  step,  predicts  each 
hasty  word,  and  caricatures  beforehand  each  hasty  gesture. 
Hate  makes  a  study  of  its  objects  :  hate,  therefore,  as 
well  as  love,  might  be  said  to  stimulate  us  to  know  others. 
But  the  right  course  is  neither  to  hate,  nor  to  love,  but  to 
judge.  As  hate  blinds  us  to  virtues,  so  love  blinds  us  to 
vices.  We  ought  to  be  blind  to  nothing,  to  extenuate  no- 
thing, to  ignore  nothing,  but  to  be  purely  and  reasonably 
critical.     Thus  we  shall  know  humanity  as  it  is." 

The  answer  to  this  very  plausible  theory  is  extremely 
simple  :  '"  Your  theory  appears  to  be  just  and  wise  upon  a 
cursory  and  unscientific  view  of  human  nature  :  but  it 
has  not  endured  the  scientific  test  of  experiment ;  it  has 


Letter  5]  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  43 

not  worked.  I  believe  the  reason  why  it  does  not  work  is, 
that  it  ignores  some  faintly  discernible  but  growing  ten- 
dencies in  human  nature  which  are  not  to  be  discerned 
without  more  sympathy  than  you  appear  to  possess  :  no 
human  being  can  be  understood  in  the  daylight  of  Reason 
alone  ;  affection  and  Imagination  are  needed  to  transport 
us  as  it  were  into  the  heart  of  a  fellow-creature,  to  enable 
us  to  realize  him  as  we  realize  ourselves,  and  to  treat  him 
as  we  would  ourselves  be  treated ;  faith  also  in  the  possi- 
bilities of  humanity  is  a  very  powerful  help  not  only 
towards  discerning  the  best  and  noblest  that  men  can  do, 
but  also  towards  developing  their  power  of  doing  it.  But 
in  any  case,  whatever  may  be  the  reasons  for  its  failure, 
your  theory  does  not  "work,"  and  must  therefore  be 
given  up. 

"By  'failure,'  I  do  not  mean  that  your  theory  will 
prevent  you  from  getting  on  and  making  your  way  in  the 
world,  but  that  it  will  prevent  you  from  operating  on  your- 
self and  on  mankind,  so  that  you  and  they  may  do  the 
work  which  you  are  intended  to  do.  You  say  the  business 
of  a  student  of  men  is  to  be  critical.  I  say  that  such  a 
student  is  a  mere  pedant,  a  book-philosopher  :  but  the 
scientific  student  of  men  is  he  who  knows  how  to  '  work ' 
them  :  and  those  who  have  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term 
'  worked  '  men,  have  not  been  of  the  critical  temperament 
which  you  eulogize,  but  often  quite  uncritical,  wondrously 
uncritical,  but  full  of  a  fervent  faith  in  a  high  ideal  of 
humanity,  and  in  a  destiny  that  would  ultimately  conform 
humanity  to  its  ideal.  If  you  aim  at  exerting  no  social 
ennobling  influence  of  this  kind,  if  you  are  content,  while 
leading  the  life  of  a  man  of  the  world,  to  abide,  spiritually 
speaking,  in  the  cave  of  a  recluse,  then  keep  on  your  pre- 
sent course.  Criticize  men  dispassionately  to  your  heart's 
content.  Try  to  persuade  yourself  that  you  know  them. 
But  you  will   never   succeed — you  will  never  persuade 


44  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  [Letter  5 

even  yourself  that  you  have  succeeded — in  making  a 
single  human  being  the  better  for  your  influence. 

"  In  morals  as  in  mathematics  nothing  can  be  done 
without  faith  in  the  Ideal.  If  you  want  to  operate  scien- 
tifically upon  imperfect  men  you  must  keep  constantly 
before  your  mind  the  image  of  the  Perfect  Man.  We  have 
seen  that,  before  we  can  attain  to  '  applied  mathematics,' 
which  constitute  the  basis  of  those  sciences  by  which  we 
dominate  the  material  world,  we  have  to  begin  with  '  pure 
mathematics.'  In  that  region  of  study  we  have  to  idealize 
and  speak  of  things,  not  as  they  are  in  our  experience, 
but  as  they  might  be  if  certain  tendencies  that  we  see 
around  us  could  be  infinitely — yes,  and  we  must  add, 
impossibly — extended.  Yet  in  the  end,  if  we  go  patiently 
onward,  we  find  that  our  '  pure  mathematics  '  lead  us  to 
conclusions  of  immense  practical  importance. 

"  It  is  precisely  the  same  in  the  science  of  humanity, 
which  we  may  call  anthropology.  In  order  to  prepare 
the  way  for  '  applied  anthropology '  whereby  we  may 
dominate  the  immaterial  world,  the  minds  and  tempers 
of  men,  we  must  begin  with  'pure  anthropology'  ;  that  is 
to  say,  we  must  idealize  and  speak  of  man  not  as  he  is  but 
as  he  would  be  if  certain  tendencies  which  we  see  in  him, 
conducive  to  social  order  and  individual  development, 
could  be  infinitely — yes,  and  we  must  add,  if  we  limit 
our  horizon  to  this  present  life,  impossibly — extended. 
In  the  end,  if  we  go  patiently  onward,  we  shall  find  that 
'  pure  anthropology  '  will  be  of  immense  practical  import- 
ance in  helping  us  to  control  and  develop  ourselves  and 
individuals  around  us  and  all  communities  of  men.  This 
'pure  anthropology,'  having  to  do  with  the  Ideal  of 
humanity,  is  necessarily  associated  or  identified  with  the 
conception  of  God  ;  and  some  would  call  it  '  theology '  or 
'  Christianity.'  But  that  is  a  mere  matter  of  names.  Call 
it  by  whatever  name  you  please,  but  study  it  you  must. 


Letter$\  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  45 

You  will  never  'work'  mankind —that  is  to  say  you  will 
never  make  men  do  the  work  for  which  they  are  intended 
— till  you  have  studied  the  Ideal  Man." 

You  may  reply,  and  with  some  justice,  that  there  is  a 
danger  in  this  repeated  appeal  to  the  test  of  "working." 

What,"  you  may  ask,  "  about  the  Buddhist  and  the 
Mohammedan,  the  one  with  his  peaceful  missions,  the 
other  with  his  victorious  sword  ?  Cannot  both  make  the 
same  appeal  ?  In  advocating  the  invariable  appeal  to 
"working,"  do  we  not  come  dangerously  near  urging  the 
acceptance  of  any  doctrine  that  will  afford  good  leverage 
to  moral  effort,  regardless  of  its  truth  or  falsehood? 
Ought  not,  after  all,  the  harmony  of  the  doctrine  with 
Reason  (in  the  highest  sense — not  only  syllogistic,  but 
intuitive,  imaginative,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it) 
to  be  the  ultimate  criterion  ?  " 

I  suppose  there  is  a  "  danger "  in  every  means  of  at- 
taining truth,  a  danger  in  observation,  a  danger  in  experi- 
ment, a  danger  in  inductive,  a  danger  in  deductive, 
reasoning  :  but  it  does  not  follow  that  any  of  these  means 
are  to  be  discarded,  only  that  they  are  to  be  carefully 
used.  If  the  Buddhist  can  appeal  to  the  successes  of 
centuries,  that  proves,  I  should  say,  that  there  is  some 
element  of  genuine  truth  in  his  religion  ;  if  the  Moham- 
medan points  to  conversions,  in  India  and  elsewhere,  far 
more  rapid  than  those  made  by  Christianity  and  not 
dependent  on  "the  victorious  sword,"  that  also  proves 
that  in  some  important  respects — for  example  in  the 
practical  recognition  of  the  equality  of  all  believers 
without  respect  to  rank  or  race — Mohammedans  have 
been  far  more  faithful  to  their  teacher  than  we  have  been 
to  ours.  And  generally,  any  religion  that  succeeds  in 
making  men  better  with  it  than  they  were  without  it, 
must  be  admitted  (I  think)  to  contain  (so  far  as  it  suc- 
ceeds) some  element  of  divine  revelation.     And  therefore, 


46  IDEALS  AND  TESTS  {Letter  5 

while  admitting  the  appeal  to  Reason,  I  cannot  reject  the 
appeal  to  Experience  as  well.  Do  not  think  that,  in 
laying  so  much  stress  on  "  working,"  I  ignore  the  differ- 
ence between  the  propositions  of  Natural  Science  and 
those  of  Religion,  or  forget  how  much  more  ready  and 
convincing  verification  is  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter. 
The  means  of  verifying  may  differ  in  different  ages  :  why 
not  ?  In  the  earliest  period  of  Christianity,  men  had,  as 
a  test,  the  contrast  between  the  heathen  and  the  Christian 
life  ;  the  burning  zeal  of  the  freshly  imparted  Spirit  of 
Christ ;  and  the  "  mighty  works  "  wrought  by  the  Apostles 
and  perhaps  by  some  of  their  successors.  Now,  for  us  in 
Christendom,  the  proof  from  "contrast"  is  less  obvious, 
and  we  have  lost  also  something  of  the  fresh  and  fiery  zeal 
— must  we  not  add  the  occasionally  misguided  zeal  ? — of 
the  first  Christians  :  but,  by  way  of  compensation,  we  have, 
besides  our  individual  experiences,  the  collective  evidence 
of  many  generations  shewing  what  Christ's  Spirit  can  do 
to  help  us  when  we  obey  it,  to  chasten  us  when  we  dis- 
obey. Are  we  wrong  then  in  inferring  that  one  test  of 
religions  is  the  same  which  our  Lord  appointed  for  testing 
men  :  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them"  ? 

There  is  undoubtedly  a  great  difference  between  proof 
in  Science  and  proof  in  matters  of  Religion  :  and  Religion 
depends,  far  more  than  Science,  upon  Imagination.  But 
I  have  not  ignored  this  difference.  On  the  contrary,  I 
have  attempted  to  show  that,  since  Religion  depends  far 
more  than  Science  upon  Imagination  ;  and  since  Science 
itself  depends  largely  upon  Imagination  ;  therefore  Re- 
ligion must  depend  very  largely  upon  Imagination,  and 
especially  upon  that  form  of  Imagination  to  which  we 
give  the  name  of  Faith. 


IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  47 


VI 

My  dear , 

You  suspect  that  I  am  "pushing  the  claims  of 
the  Imagination  so  far  as  to  deprive  the  Reason  or  Un- 
derstanding1 of  its  rights  ;"  and  you  ask  me  whether  I 
dispute  the  universal  belief  that  the  former  is  an  "  illusive 
faculty."  As  for  your  suspicion,  I  will  endeavour  to  show 
that  it  is  groundless.  As  for  your  question,  I  admit  that 
the  Imagination  is  "  illusive,"  but  I  must  add  that  it  also 
leads  us  to  truth.  It  constructs  the  hypotheses,  as  well  as 
the  illusions,  which,  when  tested  by  experience,  guide  us 
towards  Knowledge. 

Imagination  is  the  "imaging"  faculty  of  the  mind. 
It  does  not,  strictly  speaking,  create,  any  more  than  an 
artist,  strictly  speaking,  creates.  But  as  an  artist  com- 
bines lines,  colours,  shades,  sounds,  and  thoughts,  each 
one  of  which  by  itself  is  familiar  to  everybody,  in  such 
new  combinations  as  to  produce  effects  that  impress  us 
all  as  original  and  unprecedented,  so  does  the  Imagination 
out  of  old  fragments  make  new  existences  and  unities. 

Attention  impresses  upon  us  the  present  ;  Memory 
recalls  the  past  ;  but  the  Imagination  is  never  content 
simply  to  reproduce  the  past  or  present.     It  sums  up  the 

1  "Reason"  is  used,  in  these  letters,  in  a  sense  for  which  Coleridge  (I 
believe)  preferred  to  use  "Understanding."  But  as  long  as  we  have  a  verb 
"  reason,"  commonly  used  of  mathematical,  logical,  and  ordinary  processes 
of  arguing,  so  long  it  will  be  inexpedient,  in  a  popular  treatise,  to  use  the 
word  in  any  but  its  popular  sense.  Perhaps  some  might  give  the  name  of 
"higher  Reason"  to  what  I   call  Imagination. 


48  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON         [Letter  6 

past  of  Memory  (sometimes  perhaps  also  the  present  of 
Attention)  and  combines  it  with  a  conjectured  future  in 
such  a  way  as  to  produce  a  whole.  It  is  always  seeking 
for  likenesses,  orderly  connections,  regular  sequences, 
beautiful  relations,  suggestions  of  unity  in  some  shape  or 
other,  so  as  to  reduce  many  things  into  one  and  to  obtain 
a  satisfying  picture. 

For  example,  suppose  a  large  mill-wheel  at  rest  to 
be  almost  hidden  from  my  eyes  by  intervening  trees  so 
that,  even  if  it  were  moving,  I  could  only  see  one  spoke 
at  a  time ;  and  at  present  I  am  not  aware  that  it  is  close 
before  me.  Something  begins  to  move.  I  look  up. 
Attention  tells  me  that  I  see  before  me,  moving  from  left 
to  right,  something  like  a  plank  or  pole  :  it  passes  and  I 
see  nothing  ;  but  then  comes  another  similar  object  mov- 
ing similarly  ;  then  a  third,  rather  quicker  ;  then  a  fourth, 
quicker  still.  The  mind  at  once  sets  to  work  to  find  the 
cause.  The  Memory  tells  me  that  I  have  seen  simply  a 
number  of  poles  or  planks  moving  from  left  to  right  with 
quickened  motion  ;  the  Attention  tells  me  that  I  see  one 
now  ;  but  the  Imagination,  taking  m  the  isolated  reports 
of  Memory  and  Attention,  includes  them  in  a  larger 
hypothesis  of  her  own,  in  which,  if  I  may  so  express  it, 
the  constituent  elements,  the  spokes,  are  subordinated, 
and  the  explanatory  unity,  the  wheel,  is  brought  into 
prominence  :  and  thus  the  motion  from  left  to  right, 
which  explained  nothing,  is  replaced,  in  my  mind,  by  the 
motion  of  revolution,  which  explains  everything. 

It  is  on  the  basis  of  the  Imagination,  aided  by 
Experience  and  Reason,  that  we  establish  our  conviction 
of  the  permanence  of  the  simplest  Laws  of  Nature. 
This  I  have  touched  on  in  one  of  my  previous  letters.  The 
Memory,  recalling  the  sight  of  many  stones  falling  to 
the  ground,  comes  perhaps  to  the  aid  of  Attention,  as 
a  child  notes  a  particular  stone  falling  to  the  ground,  and 


Letter 6]         IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  49 

suggests  to  the  child's  imitative  nature  an  experimental 
attempt  to  make  a  stone  fall  to  the  ground.  The  child 
does  it  once  and  again,  as  often  as  he  likes.  Then,  as  a 
result  of  this  unvarying  experience,  there  springs  up  in 
the  child's  mind  a  picture  in  which  he  sees  reproduced  an 
apparently  endless  vista  of  his  sensations  as  to  stone- 
falling  and  its  antecedents,  a  picture  not  confined,  like 
the  pictures  of  Memory,  to  past  time,  but  including 
future  as  well  as  past  and  present :  and  thus  the  childish 
thought  leaps  upwards  all  at  once  to  the  conception  of 
that  sublime  word  "  always,"  and  dares  to  promulgate  its 
first  universal  proposition,  and  attains  to  the  definite 
certainty  of  a  Law  of  Nature. 

But  you  say  that  the  Imagination  is  "illusive."  It  is  ; 
it  rarely  conducts  us  to  truth  without  first  leading  us 
through  error.  Its  business  is  to  find  likenesses  and  con- 
nections and  to  suggest  explanations,  not  to  point  out 
differences,  and  make  distinctions,  and  test  explanations  : 
these  latter  tasks  are  to  be  accomplished  not  by  Imagina- 
tion but  by  Reason  with  the  aid  of  enlarged  experience. 
The  Imagination  suggests  to  the  child  that  every  man  is 
like  his  father,  every  woman  like  his  mother  ;  that  the 
motion  of  the  sea  is  like  the  motion  of  water  in  the  wash- 
ing-basin ;  that  the  thunder  is  caused  by  the  rolling  of 
barrels  or  discharge  of  coals  up  above  ;  that  a  clock  goes 
on  of  itself  for  ever  :  and  a  multitude  of  other  illusions 
all  arising  from  the  same  healthy  imaginative  conviction 
in  every  young  mind  that  "  What  has  been  will  be,"  and 
"The  whole  world  is  according  to  one  pattern."  The 
conviction  is  based  on  a  profound  general  truth,  but  the 
particular  shapes  which  it  assumes  are  often  erroneous. 
It  is  only  after  a  course,  and  sometimes  a  very  long  course, 
of  experience  and  experiment,  that  the  child,  or  perhaps 
the  man,  eliminates  with  the  aid  of  Reason  those  ideas 
which  will  not  work,  and  confirms  those  that  will  work, 

E 


50  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  [Letter  6 

till  the  latter  become  at  last  strong  and  inherent  and 
quasi  instinctive  convictions.  None  the  less,  if  the 
Imagination  did  not  first  suggest  the  ideas  on  which  the 
Reason  is  to  operate,  we  should  never  obtain  anything 
worth  calling  knowledge. 

We  might  express  all  this  by  saying  that  Imagination 
is  the  mother  of  working-hypotheses  :  and  this  is  true  of 
all  working-hypotheses,  those  of  the  observatory  and 
laboratory  as  well  as  those  of  the  nursery.  No  one  who 
grasps  this  truth  will  henceforth  deny  the  debt  of  science 
to  Imagination.  Knowledge  is  not  worth  calling  know- 
ledge till  it  is  reduced  to  Law  ;  and  Law,  as  I  have 
shown  you  above,  is  a  mere  idea  of  the  Imagination. 
I  do  not  deny  the  subsequent  value  of  Reason  ;  but 
Imagination  must  come  first.  It  was  from  the  Imagina- 
tion that  there  first  flashed  upon  the  mind  of  Newton  the 
vision  of  the  working-hypothesis  by  which  the  apple's  fall 
and  the  planet's  path  might  be  simultaneously  explained. 
Then  came  in  Reason,  with  experiment,  testing,  com- 
paring, prepared  to  detect  discrepancies,  unlikelihoods, 
and  any  want  of  harmony  between  the  new  theory  and 
the  old  order  of  things.  Finally,  the  once-no-more- 
than-working-hypothesis,  having  been  found  to  harmonize 
with  countless  past  and  present  phenomena  and  having 
enabled  us  to  predict  countless  future  phenomena,  is  now 
called  a  Law,  and  we  are  practically  certain  that  it  will 
act.  The  approval  of  this  Law  we  owe  to  Reason,  but 
for  the  suggestion  of  it  we  are  indebted  to  Imagination. 
On  the  debt  owed  to  Imagination  by  Mathematics — the 
foundation  of  all  science — I  will  not  add  anything  to  what 
has  been  said  in  a  recent  letter. 

Next  as  to  the  work  of  Imagination  in  art.  Poets  and 
artists,  as  well  as  astronomers,  must  be,  so  to  speak, 
ex  analogia  Universi ;  that  is  to  say,  they  must  be  in 
harmony  with  that  order  of  things  which  they  long  to 


Letter  6}         IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  51 

reveal  to  their  fellow-men  ;  they  must  see  Law  and  Unity 
where  others  fail  to  see  it  ;  they  must  have  inherited  or 
received  capacities  and  intuitions  which  give  them  an 
intense  sympathy  with  the  deep-down-hidden  rhythms 
and  abysmal  motions  which  regulate  atoms  and  sounds, 
and  hues  and  shapes,  and  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
men.  An  artist  who  wishes  to  paint  a  hill-side,  or  a  wave, 
or  a  face,  must  have  a  vision  of  it.  He  must  see  it  not 
only  exactly  as  it  is,  but  how  it  is  :  he  sympathizes,  as  it 
were,  with  every  cleft  and  runlet  and  hollow  and  projec- 
tion of  the  hill,  with  every  turn  and  fold  and  shade  and 
hue  of  the  ever-varying  wave  :  he  realizes  the  secret  of 
Nature's  working.  Shall  we  make  a  distinction  between 
the  secret  in* the  one  case  and  the  other?  Shall  we  say 
the  "spirit"  of  the  face,  but  the  "law"  of  the  hill 
and  the  "  law "  of  the  wave  ?  Or  will  not  the  intuition 
into  this  complex  combination  of  multitudinous  forces, 
apparently  free  and  conflicting  yet  all  guided  and  con- 
trolled into  one  harmonious  result,  be  better  expressed  by 
saying  that  he  enters  into  the  "  spirit "  in  all  cases,  the 
"  spirit"  of  the  hill,  the  wave,  and  the  face  ?  In  propor- 
tion as  he  has  this  power,  a  great  artist  will  be  less  likely 
to  speak  about  it,  and  less  able  to  explain  it :  but  have  it 
he  must  ;  and  it  is  a  power  really  not  dissimilar,  though 
apparently  most  different,  from  the  scientific  Imagination. 
It  is,  in  both  cases,  a  power  of  recognizing  Order  and 
Unity.  The  test  also  of  the  artistic,  is  (roughly  speaking) 
the  same  as  that  of  the  scientific  Imagination.  Those 
ideas  are  right  which  "work."  Does  a  scientific  idea 
open,  like  a  key,  the  secrets  of  Nature  ?  Then  it  "  works," 
and  is,  so  far,  right.  So  in  art :  to  imagine  rightly  is  to 
imagine  powerfully  so  as  to  sway  the  minds  of  men. 
Those  artistic  imaginations  are  wrong  which  fail  to  fit 
the  wards  of  the  complicated  human  lock  and  to  stir  the 
inmost   thoughts.     There  are  obvious  objections  to  this 

E  2 


52  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON         {Letter 6 

definition  of  what  is  artistically  right  ;  what  stirs  the 
Athenian  may  not  stir  the  Esquimaux.  But,  roughly 
speaking,  we  may  say  that  the  test  has  held  good.  What 
has  stirred  the  Athenian  has  stirred  the  great  civilising 
races  of  the  world.  There  may  be  a  better  and  a  higher 
test  hereafter  ;  but,  for  the  present  at  all  events,  prolonged 
experience  of  its  "working"  is  the  test  of  artistic 
Imagination. 

But  the  Imagination  plays,  perhaps,  its  most  important 
part  in  our  conceptions  of  human  emotions  and  human 
character.  These  things  cannot  be  exactly  defined,  like 
triangles  or  circles  ;  nor  can  they  or  their  results  be  pre- 
dicted like  the  results  of  chemical  action  or  the  instinc- 
tive motions  of  irrational  animals.  Yet  the  Imagination 
helps  us,  after  a  sympathetic  contemplation  of  what  a 
friend  has  done  and  said  and  wished,  to  complete  the 
picture  by  taking  as  it  were  a  bird's-eye  view  of  his  past, 
present  and  future,  so  as  to  be  able  in  some  measure  to 
realize  and  predict  what  he  will  do  and  say  and  wish. 
This  mental  "imagination,"  "  image,"  or  "idea"  of  our 
friend  we  might  describe  as  the  "  law  "  of  his  being,  so  far 
as  it  was  grasped  by  us  :  but  so  much  more  subtle  and 
variable  than  any  known  "law"  are  the  sequences  of 
human  thought  and  conduct,  that  we  generally  prefer  the 
phrase  which  we  just  now  used  to  describe  the  intuition 
of  the  artist  ;  and  so  we  speak  of  "  entering  into  the 
spirit  "  of  a  man.  It  is  usual  to  say  that  we  do  this  by 
"  sympathy  :  "  but  sympathy  is  only  one  form  of  Imagina- 
tion tinged  with  love,  the  power  of  imagining  the  joys 
and  sorrows  of  others  and  of  realizing  them  as  one's  own. 
Imagination,  without  love,  might  realize  the  sorrows  of 
an  enemy  to  gloat  over  them  :  love,  if  it  could  be  without 
Imagination— which  it  cannot  be,  since  love  implies  at 
least  some  imagination  of  what  the  beloved  would  wish- 
would  be  a  poor  lifeless  sentiment  doing  nothing,  or  nothing 


Letter  6]  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  53 

to  the  purpose.  But  imaginative  love,  or  sympathy,  gives 
us  the  key  to  the  knowledge  of  all  human  nature,  and  is 
the  foundation  of  all  domestic  and  social  unity  and  order. 

As  to  the  test  of  Imagination  when  brought  to  bear 
upon  human  nature,  you  will  remember,  I  dare  say,  that 
it  was  determined  to  be  the  success  with  which  it  "  worked  " 
human  nature,  or,  in  other  words,  made  men  do  "  what 
they  are  intended  to  do."  But  I  was  then  speaking  of  the 
way  in  which  the  great  prophets,  lawgivers,  and  founders 
of  religions  have  influenced  great  masses  of  mankind, 
and  in  which  almost  every  mother  influences  her  children, 
by  idealizing  them.  I  might  have  added,  and  I  will  now 
add,  a  word  on  the  manner  in  which  an  imaginary  ideal  of 
human  nature  proves  its  truth  experimentally  to  the 
imaginer,  by  "  working "  him.  that  is,  by  making  him 
capable  of  doing  "  the  work  he  was  intended  to  do."  It 
is  the  more  necessary  to  do  this  because  the  illusions  of 
Imagination  are  nowhere  so  strong  and  so  lasting  as  in 
the  study  of  human  Nature  ;  and  there  is  a  danger  that 
we  may  be  deterred  by  the  thought  of  them  from  steadily 
pursuing  the  truth.  The  cynic  tells  us  with  a  sneer  that 
babies,  and  none  but  babies,  think  men  and  women  better 
than  they  are,  and  that,  the  older  one  grows,  the  more  one  is 
disillusionised  about  the  virtue  of  human  nature.  But  that 
is  not  true,  or  only  a  half  truth.  If  we,  as  children,  imagine 
the  men  and  women  about  us  to  be  perfections  of  power, 
wisdom,  and  virtue,  one  reason  is,  that  we  have,  as  chil- 
dren, a  most  inadequate  standard  of  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  excellence.  As  our  standard  rises,  our  sense  of 
inadequacy  increases;  but  the  reason  why,  as  we  grow 
older,  we  cease  to  think  people  perfect,  is,  very  often,  not 
that  we  think  worse  of  human  beings,  but  that  we  think 
better  of  human  possibilities. 

But  in  some  minds  defect  of  Imagination  combines 
with  other  causes  to  induce  the  repeatedly  disillusionised 


1,4  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  [Letter  6 

man  to  give  up  the  search  after  the  truth  that  lies  beneath 
the  illusion  and  to  cast  away  all  trust,  all  thought,  of  any 
ideal  of  humanity.  Those  who  do  this  make  shipwreck 
of  their  own  lives.  Their  low  ideal  or  no-ideal  of  conduct 
does  not  "  work  ; "  that  is  to  say,  it  does  not  fit  them  to 
do  the  work  they  were  intended  to  do.  Even  for  the  pur- 
poses of  their  own  happiness  their  life  is  a  failure.  So 
far  as  the  spiritual  side  of  their  nature  is  concerned,  a 
dull  and  stagnant  self-satisfaction  is  the  highest  prize  they 
can  hope  to  acquire  :  they  have  none  of  the  keen  joys  of 
spiritual  aspiration,  of  failures  redeemed,  of  gradual  pro- 
gress, and  of  deeper  insight  into  the  glorious  possibilities 
of  human  nature.  But  those  who,  while  not  rejecting  the 
sobering  admonitions  of  Experience  and  Reason,  can 
nevertheless  so  far  obey  the  promptings  of  Imagination 
as  to  retain  in  their  hearts  an  ever  fresh  and  expansive 
and  healthful  Ideal  of  life,  find  themselves  led  on  by  it 
from  hope  to  nobler  hope,  from  effort  to  more  arduous 
effort,  until  life  and  effort  end  together. 

Let  this  suffice  as  my  protest  against  the  popular  fallacy 
that  the  Imagination  is  an  abnormal  faculty,  limited  to 
poets  and  painters  and  "artists,"  mostly  illusive,  and 
always  to  be  subordinated  in  the  search  after  truth.  I 
maintain,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  all 
knowledge  ;  that  it  is  no  less  necessary  for  science,  for 
morals,  and  for  religion,  than  for  artistic  success  ;  and 
that  the  illusions  of  Imagination  are  the  stepping-stones 
to  Truths. 

Now  to  speak  of  Reason,  or,  as  some  would  call  it, 
Understanding.  While  dealing  with  Imagination,  we  re- 
cognized that  the  work  of  Reason  is  mostly  negative  and 
corrective  :  but  let  us  come  to  detail.  Reason  is  commonly 
said  to  proceed  by  two  methods  ;  (i)  by  Induction,  where- 
in, by  "  inducing,"  or  introducing,  a  number  of  particular 
instances  {e.g.  "A,  B,  C,  &c,  are  men  and  are  mortal"), 


Letter  6\         IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  55 

you  establish  a  general  conclusion  ("all  men  are  mortal ")  ; 
(ii)  by  Deduction,  wherein,  from  two  previous  state- 
ments called  Premises,  you  deduce  a  third,  called  a 
Conclusion. 

(i)  As  regards  Induction,  surely  you  must  admit  that 
the  initial  part  of  the  task  falls  not  upon  the  Reason  but 
upon  the  Imagination  ;  which  sees  likenesses  and  leaps  to 
general  conclusions,  mostly  premature  or  false,  but  all  con- 
taining a  truth  from  which  the  falsehood  must  be  eliminated. 
Thus,  a  child  imagines,  by  premature  Induction,  that  all 
men  are  (i)  like  his  father  ;  (2)  black-haired  ;  (3)  between 
five  and  six  feet  high  ;  (4)  white-skinned,  and  so  on.  Then 
comes  Reason  afterwards,  comparing  and  contrasting 
these  imaginative  premature  conclusions  with  a  wider  and 
contradictory  experience  and  widening  the  conclusion 
accordingly.  Hence  it  is  the  part  of  Reason  to  suggest 
those  varied  experiments  which  are  a  necessary  part  of 
scientific  Induction  ;  and  this  is  generally  done  by  pointing 
out  to  us  some  neglected  difference  :  "  You  say  you  had 
a  Turkish  bath  three  times,  and  each  time  caught  a  cold  : 
but  were  the  antecedents  of  these  three  colds  quite  alike  ? 
If  not,  how  did  they  differ  ?  Did  you  not  on  the  first 
occasion  sit  in  a  draught  at  a  public  meeting  ?  on  the 
second,  forget  to  put  on  your  great  coat  ?  on  the  third,  let 
the  fire  out  though  it  was  freezing  ?  Consider  therefore, 
not  the  single  point  of  likeness,  the  Turkish  bath,  but  the 
points  of  unlikeness  also,  in  the  antecedents  of  your  three 
colds  ;  and  try  the  Turkish  bath  again,  omitting  these 
antecedents,  before  you  say  '  A  Turkish  bath  always  gives 
me  cold.' " 

You  see  then  that  in  Induction  the  positive  and  sugges- 
tive part  of  the  work  is  done  by  the  Imagination  ;  the 
negative  and  eliminative  part  by  Reason. 

(ii)  As  regards  Deduction,  the  business  of  Reason  is  to 
ascertain  that  the  Premises  are  not  only  true  but  also 


56  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  [Letter  6 

connected  in  such  a  way  that  a  conclusion  can  be  drawn 
from  them.  But  even  here  Imagination  plays  a  part :  for 
the  conclusion  of  every  syllogism  (roughly  speaking) 
depends  upon  the  following  axiom  :  "  If  a  is  included  in 
b,  and  b  is  included  in  c,  then  a  is  included  in  c  ;  in  other 
words,  if  a  watch  is  in  a  box,  and  the  box  is  in  a  room, 
then  the  watch  is  in  the  room."  Now  this  general  propo- 
sition, like  all  general  propositions,  is  arrived  at  with 
the  aid  of  the  Imagination,  so  that  we  may  fairly  say  that 
the  Imagination,  helps  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the 
Syllogism.  When  therefore  you  bear  in  mind  that  in 
every  Syllogism  the  Premises  are  often  the  result  of  an 
Induction  in  which  Imagination  has  played  a  part,  and 
that  the  conclusion  always  depends  upon  an  axiom  of 
the  Imagination,  you  must  admit  that  even  Deductive 
Reasoning  by  no  means  excludes  the  Imagination. 

(iii)  Practically,  errors  seldom  arise,  and  truth  is  seldom 
discovered,  from  mere  Deductive  Reasoning.  Any  one 
can  see  his  way  through  a  logical  Syllogism,  and  almost 
any  one  can  lay  his  finger  on  the  weak  point  in  an  illogical 
one.  But  the  difficulty  is  to  start  the  Reasoning  in  the 
right  direction  and  to  begin  the  Logical  Chain  with  an 
appropriate  Syllogism. 

For  example,  suppose  we  wish  to  prove  that  "  every 
triangle  which  has  two  angles  equal,  has  two  sides  opposite 
to  them  equal  "  :  how  can  our  Reason,  our  discriminative 
faculty,  help  us  here  ?  At  present,  not  at  all.  We  must 
first  call  to  our  aid  the  Imagination,  which  says  to  us, 
"  Imagine  the  triangle  with  two  equal  angles  to  have  two 
unequal  sides  opposite  to  them,  and  see  what  follows." 
And  every  one  who  has  done  a  geometrical  Deduction 
knows  that  we  frequently  start  by  "imagining"  the  con- 
clusion to  be  already  proved,  or  the  problem  to  be  already 
performed,  and  then  endeavouring  to  realise,  among  the 
many   consequences  that  would  follow,   which  of  those 


Letter  6]  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON  57 

consequences  would  harmonize  with,  or  be  identical  with, 
the  data  to  which  we  are  working  back. 

The  same  process  is  common  in  the  reasoning  that  deals 
with  what  is  called  Circumstantial  Evidence.  Thus,  it  is 
asserted  by  A  that  he  saw  B  commit  a  murder  in  the 
midst  of  a  field,  five  minutes  before  midnight,  on  the  first 
clay  of  last  month  :  how  can  we  test  the  truth  of  A's 
assertion  ?  The  negative  faculty  of  Reason  cannot  answer 
the  question.  But  once  more  Imagination  steps  in  and 
says,  "  Imagine  the  story  to  be  true  ;  imagine  yourself  to 
be  in  A's  place  ;  imagine  the  circumstances  which  would 
have  surrounded  him,  the  hidden  place  from  which  he  saw 
the  murder,  the  light  which  enabled  him  to  see  it,  the 
precise  sight  that  he  saw,  the  voices  or  sounds  that 
he  heard,  and,  in  a  word,  all  the  details  of  a  likely  and 
coherent  narrative."  When  the  Imagination  has  done  this 
and  "  imagined  "  the  place— perhaps  a  hedge— the  light — 
moonlight,  and  so  on,  Reason  steps  in,  and  corroborates 
or  rejects,  by  shewing  that  there  was,  or  was  not,  a  hedge 
whence  the  deed  could  have  been  witnessed  ;  that  there 
was  a  full  moon  or  no  moon  on  the  night  in  question  ; 
that,  if  there  had  been  a  moon,  the  place  in  question  was 
open  to  the  moonlight,  or  in  deep  shadow  :  and  thus 
Imagination  and  Reason  (aided  by  experience  of  the  place 
and  knowledge  of  the  time)  arrive  at  a  conclusion,  the 
former  making  a  positive,  the  latter  a  negative  contri- 
bution. Hence  it  appears  that  even  in  those  questions 
which  are  called  pre-eminently  "  practical  " — for  what 
can  be  more  "practical"  than  a  trial  in  a  law-court 
for  life  or  death  ? — the  Imagination  plays  so  great  a 
part  that  without  its  aid  the  reason  could  effect  little 
or  nothing. 

Here  I  must  break  off ;  but  I  hope  I  have  said  enough 
to  satisfy  you  that  the  imaginative  faculty,  though  it  needs 
the  constant  test  of  Reason  and  Experience,  is  far  more 


58  IMAGINATION  AND  REASON         {Letter  6 

intimately  connected  with  what  we  call  knowledge,  than 
is  commonly  supposed.  But  if  this  be  so,  we  ought 
not  (I  think)  to  be  surprised  if  a  careful  analysis  of 
our  profoundest  religious  convictions  should  reveal  that 
for  these  also  we  are  indebted,  and  intended  by  God  to 
be  indebted,  to  the  Imagination  far  more  than  to  the 
Reason. 


THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  59 


VII 

My  dear , 

I  have  been  very  much  pained  by  your  sprightly 
account  of  the  lively  and  witty  conversation  between  you 

and  your  clever  young  friends, and ,  on  the  proofs 

of  the  existence  of  a  God.  Bear  with  me  if  I  assure  you 
that  discussions  in  that  spirit  are  likely  to  be  fatal  to  real 
faith.  They  may  often  be  far  more  dangerous  than  a 
serious  collision  between  untrained  faith  and  the  most 
highly  educated  scepticism.  I  do  not  deprecate  discussion, 
but  I  do  most  earnestly  plead  for  reverence. 

Young  men  at  the  Universities  stand  in  especial  need 
of  this  warning  because  their  studies  lead  them  to  be 
critical  ;  and  habits  of  criticism  may  easily  weaken  the 
habit  of  reverence.  I  remember  once  being  shewn  over 
a  great  public  school  by  the  Headmaster,  justly  celebrated 
as  a  Headmaster  once,  and  much  more  celebrated  since 
in  another  capacity.  It  was  a  grand  school,  though  a 
little  too  ecclesiastical  to  suit  my  taste.  While  we  were 
in  the  chapel  my  friend  spoke  earnestly  of  the  pleasure  it 
gave  him  on  Sundays  to  see  in  the  chapel  the  familiar 
faces  of  the  old  boys  who  came  to  revisit  the  old  place.  At 
the  same  time  he  deplored  the  contrast  between  those 
who  went  into  the  army,  and  those  who  went  to  the  Univer- 
sities :  "  The  army  fellows,"  he  said,  "  almost  always 
come  to  Communion,  the  university  fellows  almost  always 
stop  away."  These  words  made  an  indelible  impression 
on  my  mind,  "  Who  is  to  blame,  or  praise,  for  this  ? "  asked 


60  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

I,  on  my  journey  homeward.  "  Is  it  the  army  that  is  to  be 
praised  for  its  inculcation  of  discipline  and  self-sub- 
ordination, helping  the  young  fellows  to  realise  the 
meaning  of  self-sacrifice  ?  Or  is  it  the  University  that 
is  to  be  blamed  for  its  negative  and  destructive  teaching  ? 
Or  can  it  be  that  the  school  is  in  part  to  blame  for 
teaching  the  boys  to  believe  too  much ;  and  the  Uni- 
versity in  part  to  blame  for  teaching  the  young  men  to 
criticize  too  much  ? ' ; 

Over  and  over  again,  since  that  time,  I  have  asked 
myself  these  same  questions  about  many  other  young 
men  from  many  other  public  schools.  I  honour  the  army 
as  much  as  most  men,  more  perhaps  than  many  do  :  but 
after  all  the  profession  of  a  soldier  is  the  profession  of  a 
throat-cutter ;  throat-cutting  in  an  extensive,  expeditious, 
and  honourable  way, — throat-cutting  in  one  direction  often 
undertaken  merely  to  prevent  throat-cutting  in  another 
direction — but  still  throat-cutting  after  all :  and  it  seemed 
very  hard  to  believe  that  the  profession  of  throat-cutting 
is,  and  ought  to  be,  a  better  preparation  than  the  pursuit 
of  learning  at  the  Universities,  for  participation  in  the  Holy 
Communion.  On  the  whole  I  was  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  young  men  in  the  army  had  retained  and 
deepened  the  instinctive  obedience  to  authority,  the  sense 
of  the  need  of  the  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the 
community,  and  perhaps  also  the  feeling  of  reverence? 
while  they  had  not  been  taught  so  fully  to  appreciate  all 
that  was  implied  in  attendance  at  Communion  or  to  realize 
the  intellectual  difficulties  presented  by  the  New  Testa- 
ment. In  other  words — to  put  it  briefly  and  roughly— the 
young  cadets  and  officers  came  to  Communion  because 
they  had  been  taught  to  feel  and  not  taught  to  think  ;  and 
the  University  men  stayed  away  because  they  had  been 
taught  to  think  and  not  to  feel.  Now  I  will  ask  you  to 
excuse  me  if  I  suggest  that  the  principal  danger  to  your 


Letter  7]  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  61 

character  at  present  arises  from  the  want  of  such  disci- 
pline as  may  be  obtained  by  some  in  the  army,  and  by 
others  in  the  practical  work  of  life.  You  need  some 
emotional  and  moral  exercise  to  counterbalance  your 
mental  and  intellectual  training.  You  are  not  aware  how 
much  of  the  most  valuable  knowledge,  conviction,  cer- 
tainty—call it  what  you  will,  but  I  mean  that  kind  of  moral 
and  spiritual  knowledge  which  is  the  basis  of  all  right 
conduct — springs  in  the  main  from  spiritual  and  emotional 
sources. 

In  the  present  letter  I  should  like  to  confine  myself  to 
this  subject,  the  culture,  if  I  may  so  say,  of  Christian  faith. 
Let  me  then  ask  you  first  to  clear  your  mind  by  asking 
yourself  what  is  the  essence  of  the  faith  which  you  would 
desire  to  retain.  It  is  (is  it  not  ? )  a  faith  or  trust  in  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  This  surely  is  the  Gospel  or  Good 
News  for  which  Christ  lived  and  died,  in  order  that  He 
might  breathe  it  into  the  hearts  of  men.  "  Fatherhood  " 
—some  of  your  young  friends  will  exclaim— "  What  an 
antiquated  notion  !  Flat  anthropomorphism  !  "  By  "  an- 
thropomorphism "  they  mean  a  tendency  to  make  God  in 
human  shape;  just  as  Heine's  four  legged  poetic  Bruin 
makes  God  to  be  a  great  white  Polar  Bear,  and  the  frogs 
of  Celsus  imagine  Him  to  be  a  gigantic  Frog.  No  doubt, 
this  is  very  funny  ;  but  the  decryers  of  anthropo- 
morphism who  venture  on  any  conception  of  a  God- 
are  they  any  less  funny  ?  Do  not  they  shew  a  similar 
disposition  to  make  God  in  the  shape  of  human  works 
or  human  experiences?  Shall  I  be  exploring  a  nobler 
path  of  spiritual  speculation  if  I  say  God  is  a  Rock 
or  a  Buckler,  or  a  Centre,  or  a  Force,  than  if  I  say 
God  is  a  Father  in  heaven  ?  Ask  your  sceptical  com- 
panions what  conception  of  God  they  can  mention 
which  is  not  open  to  objection,  and  they  will  perhaps 
reply  "  An  Eternal,  or  a  Tendency,  not  ourselves,  which 


62  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

makes  for  righteousness."  Now  to  reply  "an  Eternal,'"' 
appears  to  me  to  be  taking  a  rather  mean  and  pedantical 
advantage  of  the  uninflected  peculiarities  of  English  (and 
Hebrew),  which  leave  it  an  open  question  whether  you 
mean  your  "  Eternal  "  to  be  masculine,  or  neuter.  And 
"Tendency"— what  is  it  ?  Is  it  not  a  "stretching/"'  or 
"  pulling,"  or  partially  neutralised  force— a  common 
human  experience  ?  Now  we  are  dealing  with  the  accu- 
sation of  limiting  our  conception  of  God  to  our  experiences 
as  men.  And,  so  far  as  this  charge  is  concerned,  what 
is  the  difference  between  calling  God  a  "  Tendency,"  or 
a  "  Rock,"  or  a  "  Shield,"  or  a"  House  of  Defence,"  as 
the  old  Psalmist  does?  Are  not  all  these  names  mere 
metaphors  derived  from  human  experience  ?  In  the  same 
way  to  call  God  a  Father  is  (no  doubt)  a  metaphor  :  but 
is  it  more  a  metaphor  than  to  call  Him  a  Tendency  ? 

Some  metaphors,  which  describe  God  by  reference  to 
the  relations  of  man  to  man,  may  be  called  anthropo- 
morphic ;  others,  which  describe  Him  by  reference  to 
implements  (such  as  a  Shield)  may  be  called  organo- 
morphic  ;  others,  which  assimilate  Him  to  lifeless  and 
inorganic  objects  (such  as  a  Hill)  may  be  called  by  some 
other  grand  name,  such  as  apsychomorphic ;  others, 
which  would  subtilize  Him  down  to  a  thought,  or  a  mind, 
or  a  spirit,  may  be  called  phronesimorphic,  noumorphic, 
pneumatomorphic  ;  but  in  the  name  of  common  sense — 
or  in  the  name  of  that  sense  which  ought  to  be  common, 
and  which  ought  to  revolt  against  bondage  to  mere  words 
— what  is  there  in  that  termination  "  morphic  "  which 
should  stagger  a  seeker  after  divine  truth  ?  Do  we  not  all 
recognize  that  all  terms  applied  to  the  supreme  God  are 
"  morphisms  "  of  various  kinds  ?  And  the  question  is  not 
how  we  can  avoid  a  "  morphism  " — for  we  cannot  avoid 
it — but  how  or  where  we  can  find  the  noblest  and  most 
spiritually   helpful   "  morphism."     And   as  between    the 


Letter  7]  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  63 

ancient  and  the  modern  metaphors  just  set  before  you  can 
you  entertain  a  moment's  doubt  ?  Might  we  not  imagine 
the  question  put  —  after  the  old  Roman  authoritative 
fashion — to  an  assembly  of  the  consciences  of  universal 
mankind  :  "  Christ  says  that  God  is  a  Father  in  heaven  ; 
refined  thinkers  say  that  He  is  a  Tendency  ;  utri  creditis, 
gentes?"  To  which  I  seem  to  hear  the  answer  of  the 
Universe  come  back,  "  We  will  have  no  Tendencies  seated 
on  the  throne  of  Heaven.  Give  us  a  Father,  or  we  will 
have  nothing."  And  you,  my  dear  friend,  how  is  it  with 
you  ?     Utri  credis  ? 

But  perhaps  you  complain,  or  some  of  your  friends 
might  complain,  that  this  is  not  treating  the  question  fairly. 
"  The  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,"  they  may  say, 
"  is  to  be  discussed  like  any  other  proposition,  upon  the 
evidence."  I  entirely  deny  it,  if  from  your  "  evidence  " 
you  intend  to  exclude  the  witness  of  Imagination  expressed 
in  Faith  and  Hope.  I  assert,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is 
to  be  believed  in,  against  what  may  be  called  quasi- 
evidence.  It  cannot  be  demonstrated  to  be  either  true  or 
false.  Do  not  misunderstand  me.  There  is  abundant 
evidence  of  a  certain  kind — as  I  will  hereafter  shew — for 
the  Fatherhood  of  God  ;  but  there  is  also  evidence  against 
it :  and  what  I  mean  is,  that  the  mind  is  not  to  sit  im- 
partially and  coldly  neutral  between  the  two  testimonies, 
but  is  to  grasp  the  former  and  hold  it  fast  and  keep  it 
constantly  in  view,  while  it  lays  less  stress  on  and  (after  a 
time)  puts  on  one  side  the  latter.  I  have  shewn  you  that 
many  of  our  deepest  and  most  vital  convictions  are  based 
less  upon  Reason  than  upon  Imagination.  Why  then  should 
we  be  surprised  if  the  most  profound  convictions  of  all, 
our  religious  certainties,  rest  upon  that  imaginative 
desire  to  which  we  have  given  the  name  of  Faith  ? l     If 

-  "  Faith  is  "  desire  (approved  by  the  Conscience)  of  which  we  imagine  the 
fulfilment,  while  putting  doubt  at  a  distance"  :  see  the  Definitions  at  the 
end  of  the  volume. 


64  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

an  archangel  (robed  in  light)  were  to  step  down  to  me 
this  moment  and  were  to  cry  aloud,  "Verily  there  is  no 
God,"  I  should  reply,  or  ought  to  reply,  "Verily  thou  art 
a  devil."  If  the  same  archangel  were  to  come  in  the  same 
way  and  to  say  "  Verily  there  is  a  God,"  I  should  reply, 
"  I  felt  sure  there  was  ;  and  now  I  am  more  sure  than 
ever."  How  unfair,  how  illogical,  if  our  belief  is  to 
be  a  matter  of  mere  evidence  !  But  it  js  not  to  be  a 
matter  of  mere  evidence.  It  is  to  be  a  struggle  against 
an  evil  thought— shall  I  not  say  an  evil  being  ?— that  is 
perpetually  attempting  to  slander  God  to  men  by  repre- 
senting Him  as  permitting  or  originating  evil. 

Does  this  startle  you — this  suggestion  of  an  evil  being — 
as  being  too  old-fashioned  for  an  educated  Christian? 
Well  then,  put  it  aside  for  the  time  (though  it  is  indeed 
Christ's  doctrine)  :  and  merely  assume  as  a  temporary 
hypothesis  that  the  essence  of  Christ's  Gospel  is  a  trust  in 
the  Fatherhood  of  God.  Now,  if  this  be  so,  and  if  this 
trust  or  faith  is  to  be  kept  pure  and  strong,  must  it  not  be 
regarded  with  reverence  and  reserve  as  being  (what  indeed 
it  is)  a  kind  of  private,  domestic,  and  family  relation  ?  Is 
it  to  be  made  the  subject  for  light,  casual,  frivolous  dis- 
cussions ;  epigrammatic  displays  ;  cut-and-thrust  exhibi- 
tions of  word-fence ;  logical  or  rhetorical  symposia  ? 
What  would  you  say  of  a  young  man  who  should  allow  his 
relations  with  his  father  and  mother  to  be  discussed  with 
humour  and  epigram  on  every  light  occasion  ?  Would 
he  be  likely  long  to  retain  the  bloom  of  domestic  affection 
unimpaired  ?  I  remember  reading  about  some  well- 
educated  and  enlightened  free-thinker — I  fancy  it  was 
Bolingbroke — on  whose  table  a  Greek  Testament  was 
regularly  placed  by  the  side  of  the  port  when  the  cloth  was 
drawn,  and  whose  favourite  topic  for  discussion  after 
dinner  was  the  existence  and  attributes  of  the  Deity. 
Does  not  your  instinct  teach  you  that  from  such  discus- 


Letter  i\  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  65 

sions  as  these  no  good  could  possibly  come,  nothing  but 
a  hardening  of  the  conscience,  a  fatal  familiarity  with 
sacred  things  regarded  with  a  view  to  witticism— that  kind 
of  familiarity  which  too  surely  breeds  contempt  ?  What 
a  terrible  contrast  it  is— complacent  Bolingbroke  at  his 
wine,  analysing  the  attributes  of  God,  and  the  all-pitying 
Father  looking  down  from  heaven  and  pleading,  through 
Christ,  not  to  be  analysed  but  to  be  loved  and  trusted  ! 

May  we  not  go  a  step  further  and  say  that  Christian 
Faith  or  trust— if  it  be  once  recognized  as  faith  or 
trust,  altogether  distinct  from  the  kind  of  assent  which 
we  give  to  a  proposition  of  Euclid— needs  not  only  to 
be  protected  from  certain  evil  influences  but  also  to  be 
subjected  tov  certain  good  influences?  It  is  a  kind  of 
plant,  and  requires  its  spiritual  soil,  air,  rain  and  sunshine  ; 
in  other  words  it  needs  good  thoughts,  noble  aspirations, 
and  unselfish  acts,  to  keep  it  alive.  You  may  retort  per- 
haps that  Faith  itself  ought  to  produce  these  results,  and 
not  to  be  produced  by  them.  But  I  reply  that,  though 
Faith  does  tend  to  produce  these  results,  it  is  strengthened 
by  producing  them  ;  and  it  is  weakened  and  finally  ex- 
tinguished by  not  producing  them.  "  Our  faith  "  has  been 
described  as  "  the  victory  that  hath  overcome  the  world." 
What  is  there  in  the  world  that  it  should  need  to  be 
"overcome"?  I  suppose  the  writer  meant  that  this 
present,  visible,  tangible,  enjoyable  system  of  things— 
which  was  meant  by  the  Supreme  to  be  a  kind  of  glass 
through  which  we  might  discern  something  of  the 
greatness  and  order  of  the  Maker— has  been  converted, 
partly  by  our  selfishness,  partly  by  some  Evil  in  the  world 
outside  us,  into  a  mirror  shutting  out  all  glimpse  of  God 
and  giving  us  back  nothing  but  the  reflection  of  ourselves. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  different  way  of  regarding 
the  world  when,  our  eyes  being  opened  like  the  eyes  of 
Aeneas  amid  burning  Troy,  we  discern  in  the  midst  of 

F 


65  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

this  present  condition  of  things  a  great  conflict  between 
Good  and  Evil,  and  on  the  side  of  goodness,  we  see  the 
forms  of  Righteousness,  Justice  and  Truth,  supported  by 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity  ;  amid  the  smoke  and  roar  of 
battles  and  revolutions,  the  destructions  of  nations,  and  the 
downfall  of  empires  and  of  churches,  we  realise  that  these 
are  abiding  influences  ;  that  either  in  this  world,  or  in 
some  other,  these  things  shall  ultimately  prevail,  because 
these  are  the  Angels  that  stand  about  the  throne  of  the 
Ruler  of  the  Universe.  This  state  of  mind  is  Faith,  and 
it  is  to  be  nurtured  by  effort,  partly  in  action,  partly  in 
thought.  Bacon  bids  us  nurture  it  by  "  cherishing  the 
good  hours  of  the  mind."  St.  Paul  says  nearly  the  same 
thing  in  different  words  :  "  Whatsoever  things  are  honour- 
able, whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are 
of  good  report,  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any 
praise,  think  on  these  things." 

Are  you  surprised  at  this  ?  Does  faith  seem  to  you,  on 
these  terms,  a  possession  of  little  worth — this  quicksilver 
quality  which  varies  with  every  variation  of  our  spiritual 
atmosphere  ?  Why  surely  everything  that  lives  and  grows 
is  liable  to  flux.  You  do  not  disparage  bodily  health 
because  it  is  dependent  on  supports  and  influences,  and 
liable  to  changes  ;  why  then  disparage  spiritual  health 
because  it  is  similarly  dependent?  No  doubt  one  would 
not  be  willingly  a  religious  valetudinarian ;  a  man's 
spiritual  constitution  ought  not  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  every 
slight  and  passing  breeze  of  circumstance  ;  but  at  present 
there  is  little  danger  of  spiritual  valetudinarianism. 
Physical  "  sanitation  "  is  on  every  one's  tongue  ;  but  no 
one  thinks  of  the  necessity  of  good  spiritual  air  and  of  the 
evils  of  bad  spiritual  drainage.  We  do  not  recognize  that 
there  are  laws  of  our  spiritual  as  well  as  of  our  material 
nature.     We  wilfully  narrow  our  lives  to  the  Sabbathless 


Letter  7]  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  67 

pursuit  of  gain  or  pleasure — self  everywhere,  God  nowhere 
— and  then  go  about  hypocritically  whining  that  the  age 
of  faith  has  passed  and  that  we  have  lost  the  power  of 
believing.  With  our  own  hands  we  put  the  stopper  on  the 
telescope  and  then  complain  that  we  cannot  see  ! 

Do  not  however,  suppose  that  I  call  upon  you,  because 
hope  is  the  basis  of  Christian  belief,  on  that  account  to 
hope  against  the  truth  and  to  believe  against  reason.  I 
bid  you  believe  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  first  because 
your  conscience  tells  you  that  this  is  the  best  and  noblest 
belief,  but  secondly  also  because  this  belief — although  it 
may  be  against  the  superficial  evidence  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  Universe — is  in  accordance  with  these  phenomena 
when  you  regard  them  more  deeply  and  when  you  include 
in  your  scope  the  history  of  Christianity. 

I  admit  that  we  have  to  fight  against  temptations  in 
order  to  retain  this  belief ;  and  sometimes  I  ask  myself, 
"  If  I  and  my  children  had  been  slaves  in  one  of  the 
Southern  States  of  America  ;  or  if  I  and  my  family  had 
suffered  such  indelible  outrages  as  were  recently  inflicted 
by  the  Turks  upon  the  Bulgarians  ;  or  if  I  were  at  this 
moment  a  matchbox-seller  or  a  father  of  ten  children  (girls 
as  well  as  boys)  in  the  East  of  London — should  I  find  it 
so  easy  to  believe  that  God  is  our  Father  in  heaven  ? " 
And  I  am  obliged  to  reply,  "  No,  I  should  not  find  it  easy  ;  " 
I  fear  that  I  might  be  tempted  to  say,  as  a  workman  did 
not  long  ago  to  a  lecturer  on  co-operation  who  mentioned 
the  name  of  God  :  "  Oh,  no  ;  no  God  for  us  ;  the  work- 
man's God  deserted  him  long  ago."  And  perhaps  you 
yourself  may  remember  the  answer  of  one  of  those 
wretched  Bulgarians  to  some  newspaper  correspondent 
who  endeavoured  to  console  him  in  his  anguish  by  the  re- 
flection that  "  After  all  there  is  a  God  that  governs  the 
world  :  "  "  I  believe  you/'  was  the  reply  ;  "  there  is  indeed 
a  God  ;  and  he  governs  the  world  indeed  ;  and  he  is  the 

F    2 


68  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

Devil."  Or  take  a  spectacle  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  a 
problem.  In  the  lists  are  two  armed  knights  ;  on  the 
one  side  a  man  of  might  and  muscle,  exulting  in  conflict  ; 
on  the  other,  a  slight,  weak  creature,  who  never  fights 
save  on  compulsion,  and  is  to  fight  now  on  sternest  com- 
pulsion, being  accused  (though  innocent)  of  some  gross 
crime  by  yonder  man  of  flesh,  who  combines  scoundrel, 
liar,  traitor,  oppressor,  thief,  and  adulterer,  all  in  one  ;  and 
the  fight  is  to  begin  under  the  sanction  of  the  Church  of 
Christ.  As  the  trumpets  sound,  while  the  heralds  are  still 
calling  on  God  to  "  shew  the  right,"  the  two  men  meet, 
and  "  the  right"  is  cast  to  the  ground,  trampled  on  by  his 
enemy,  and  dragged  from  the  lists  to  the  neighbouring 
gallows,  while  the  muscular  scoundrel  wipes  his  forehead 
and  receives  congratulations.  Do  you  suppose  that  the 
innocent  man's  wife,  if  she  were  looking  on,  would  be  able 
easily  to  say  at  that  moment,  "  Verily  there  is  a  God  that 
judgeth  the  earth  "  ? 

Can  I  possibly  put  the  case  for  scepticism  more  strongly  ? 
I  would  fain  put  it  with  all  the  force  in  my  power  in  order 
to  convince  you  that  I  have  thought  often  over  these 
matters,  and  that,  although  my  own  life  may  have  been 
happy  and  free  from  stumbling-blocks,  I  have  at  least 
tried  to  understand  and  sympathize  with  those  who  find 
it  very  hard  to  believe  that  there  is  a  God.  But,  in  the 
presence  of  such  monstrous  evils  as  these,  I  take  refuge  in  a 
belief  and  in  a  fact ;  first,  in  the  belief  (which  runs  through 
almost  every  page  of  the  Gospels  and  has  received  the 
sanction  of  Christ  Himself)  that  there  is  an  Evil  Being  in 
the  world  who  is  continually  opposing  the  Good  but  will 
be  ultimately  subdued  by  the  Good  ;  secondly,  in  the 
fact  that  in  one  great  typical  conflict  between  Good  and 
Evil, — where  apparently  God  did  not  "  shew  the  right," 
and  where,  in  appearance,  there  was  consummated  the 
most  brutal  triumph  of  Evil  over  Good  that  the  world 


Letter  7]  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  69 

ever  witnessed — there  the  Good  in  reality  effected  its  most 
signal  triumph.  The  issue  of  the  conflict  on  the  Cross 
of  Christ  is  my  great  comfort  and  mainstay  of  faith,  when 
my  heart  is  distracted  with  the  thought  of  all  the  spurns, 
buffets,  and  outrages,  endured  by  much-suffering  humanity. 
"  At  last,  far  off,"  I  cry,  "  the  right  will  be  shewn,  even  as 
it  was  in  the  contest  on  the  Cross." 

You  see  then  the  nature  of  the  conflict  of  faith.  It  is 
a  struggle  of  hope  against  fear,  trustfulness  against 
trustlessness,  where  strict  logical  proof  is  impossible. 
But  I  do  not  call  you  to  set  Faith  against  Reason,  or  to 
make  hope  trample  on  the  understanding,  or  to  shut  your 
eyes  to  the  presence  or  absence  of  historical  evidence. 
If  religion  'comes  down  from  the  region  of  hope  and 
aspiration  into  the  region  of  fact  and  evidence,  and 
asserts  that  this  or  that  fact  happened  at  this  or  that  time 
and  place,  then,  so  far,  it  appeals  to  evidence,  and  by 
evidence  it  must  be  judged. 

Half  the  earnest  scepticism  of  the  present  day  is  not 
really  spiritual  scepticism  but  simply  doubt  about  his- 
torical facts.  Distinguish  carefully  and  constantly  between 
two  terms  entirely  different  but  continually  confused — the 
super-natural  and  the  miraculous. 

In  the  super-natural  every  rational  man  must  believe, 
if  he  knows  what  is  meant  by  the  term  ;  for  every 
rational  man  must  acknowledge  that  the  world  had  either 
a  beginning  or  no  beginning,  a  First  Cause  or  no  First 
Cause  ;  and  either  hypothesis  is  altogether  above  the 
level  of  natural  phenomena,  and  therefore  supernatural. 
The  theist  and  the  atheist  are  alike  believers  in  the 
supernatural.  The  agnostic,  poised  between  the  two, 
admits  that  some  supernatural  origin  of  the  world  is 
necessary,  but  is  unable  to  decide  which  of  the  two  is  the 
more  probable.  All  alike  therefore  believe  in  the  super- 
natural ;  but  the  important  difference  is  that  some  take  a 


70  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  [Letter  7 

hopeful  or  faithful,  others  a  hopeless  or  faithless,  view  of 
the  supernatural.  Proof  in  this  region  is  not  possible, 
unless  the  testimony  of  the  conscience  may  be  accepted 
as  proof.  If  Jesus  were  to  appear  to-morrow  sitting  on 
the  clouds  of  heaven  and  testifying  that  there  is  a  Father 
in  heaven,  I  can  imagine  some  men  of  science  replying, 
"  This  is  a  mere  phantom  of  the  brain,"  or,  "  This  is  the 
result  of  indigestion,"  or  "Assertion  is  not  proof." 
Mere  force  of  logical  proof  or  personal  observation  can 
convince  no  one  that  there  is  a  God  or  that  Jesus  is  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God  ;  such  a  conviction  can  only  come  from 
a  leaping  out  of  the  human  spirit  to  meet  the  Spirit  of 
God  ;  and  hence  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  "  no  man  can  say  " 
— that  is,  "  say  sincerely  " — "  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord  save  by 
the  Spirit."  Here  therefore,  in  this  region  of  the  in- 
demonstrable, I  can  honestly  use  an  effort  of  the  will  to 
ally  myself  with  the  spirit  of  faith.  "  I  will  pray  to  God  ;  I 
will  cling  to  God  ;  will  refuse  to  doubt  of  God  ;  refuse  to 
listen  to  doubts  about  God  (except  so  far  as  may  be 
needful  to  do  it,  in  order  to  lighten  the  doubts  of  others, 
and  then  only  as  a  painful  duty,  to  be  got  through  with  all 
speed)  ;  I  am  determined  (so  help  me  God)  to  believe  in 
God  to  the  end  of  my  days  :  " — in  resolving  thus  I  am  not 
acting  insincerely  nor  shutting  my  eyes  to  the  truth,  but 
taking  nature's  appointed  means  for  reaching  and  holding 
fast  the  highest  spiritual  truth. 

But  I  do  not  feel  justified  in  thus  using  my  will  to 
constrain  myself  to  believe  in  the  miraculous  ;  for  here 
God  has  given  me  other  means — such  as  history,  experi- 
ence, and  evidence — for  arriving  at  the  truth.  Nor  does 
a  belief  in  the  super-natural  in  the  least  imply  a  belief  in 
the  miraculous  also.  I  may  believe  that  God  is  con- 
tinually supporting  and  impelling  on  its  path  every 
created  thing  ;  but  I  may  also  believe  that  there  is  no 
evidence  to  prove  that  His  support  and  impulsion  have 


Letter  7]  THE  CULTURE  OF  FAITH  71 

ever  been  manifested  save  in  accordance  with  that 
orderly  sequence  which  we  call  Law.  I  may  even  believe 
that  the  Universe  is  double,  having  a  spiritual  and 
invisible  counterpart  corresponding  to  this  visible  and 
material  existence,  so  that  nothing  is  done  in  the  world 
of  flesh  below  which  has  not  been  first  done  in  the 
world  of  spirit  above  ;  yet  even  this  latitude  of  spiritual 
speculation  would  not  in  the  least  establish  the  con- 
clusion that  the  observed  sequence  of  what  we  call 
cause  and  effect  in  the  material  world  has  ever  been 
violated.  To  take  a  particular  instance,  I  may  be  con- 
vinced, that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  the  Eternal  Word  of 
God,  made  flesh  for  men  ;  and  yet  I  may  remain  uncon- 
vinced that,  *in  thus  taking  flesh  upon  Him,  He  raised 
Himself  above  the  physical  laws  of  humanity.  In  other 
words  I  may,  with  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
heartily  believe  in  the  supernatural  Incarnation  while 
omitting  from  my  Gospel  all  mention  of  the  Miraculous 
Conception.  Nay,  I  may  go  still  further.  While  cor- 
dially accepting  the  divine  nature  of  Christ,  I  may  see 
such  clear  indications  and  evidences  of  the  manner  in 
which  accounts  of  miracles  sprang  up  in  the  Church 
without  foundation  of  fact,  that  I  may  be  compelled  not 
merely  to  omit  miracles  from  my  Gospel  and  to  confess 
myself  unconvinced  of  their  truth,  but  even  to  avow  my 
conviction  of  their  untruth.  But  into  this  negative  aspect 
of  things  I  do  not  wish  now  to  enter.  I  would  rather  urge 
on  you  this  positive  consideration,  that,  since  our  recogni- 
tion of  the  Laws  of  Nature  themselves,  depends  in  a  very 
large  degree  upon  faith,  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised  if  our 
acknowledgment  of  the  Founder  of  these  Laws  rests  also  on 
the  same  basis.  And,  if  this  be  so,  we  cannot  speak  accu- 
rately about  the  "  evidence  "  for  the  existence  of  a  God, 
unless  we  include  in  that  term  the  aspirations  of  the  human 
conscience  toward  a  Maker  and  Ruler  and  Father  of  all. 


72  FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION 


VIII 

My  dear  , 

I  am  afraid  your  notions  about  "proof"  are  still 
rather  hazy  ;  for  you  quote  against  me  a  stern  and  self- 
denying  dictum  which  passes  current  among  some  of 
your  young  friends,  that  "  it  is  immoral  to  believe  what 
cannot  be  proved." 

Have  you  seriously  asked  yourself  what  you  mean  by 
"  proved  "  in  enunciating  this  proposition  ?  Do  you  mean 
"made  sufficiently  probable  to  induce  a  man  to  act  upon 
the  probability"?  Or  do  you  mean  "absolutely  demon- 
strated "  ? 

If  you  mean  the  former,  not  so  many  as  you  suppose 
are  guilty  of  this  "immorality."  Give  me  an  instance,  if 
if  you  can,  of  a  man  who  "  believes  what  cannot  be  made 
sufficiently  probable  to  induce  him  to  act  upon  the  pro- 
bability." Of  course  some  men  say  they  believe  what 
they,  in  reality,  do  not  believe  ;  but  you  speak,  not  about 
"  saying  "  but  about  "  believing  ;  "  and  I  do  not  see  howany 
man  can  "  believe"  what  he  does  not  regard  as  probable. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  therefore  that,  in  this  sense  of  the 
word  "  prove,"  your  proposition  is  meaningless. 

But  perhaps  by  "  prove,"  you  mean  "  absolutely  demon- 
strate ;  "  and  your  thesis  is  that  "  it  is  immoral  to  believe 
what  cannot  be  absolutely  demonstrated  ;  "  in  that  case  I 
am  obliged  to  ask  you  how  you  can  repeat  such  cant,  such 
a  mere  parrot  cry,  with  a  grave  face. 

Do  you  not  see  that,  as  soon  as  you  conceded  (as  I 


Letter  S]       FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION  73 

understand  you  to  have  done)  that  our  belief  in  the  Laws 
of  Nature  is  based  upon  the  Imagination,  you  virtually 
conceded  the  validity  of  a  kind  of  proof  in  which  faith 
and  hope  play  a  large  part,  and  in  which  demonstration 
is  impossible.  "  Demonstration  "  applies  to  mathematics 
and  to  syllogisms  where  the  premises  are  granted,  though 
it  is  also  sometimes  loosely  used  of  proof  conveyed  by 
personal  observation  ;  "proof"  applies  to  the  other  affairs 
of  life.  Demonstration  appeals  very  largely  (not  entirely, 
as  I  have  shown  above,  but  very  largely)  to  Reason  ; 
proof  is  largely  based  on  Faith.  Having  defined  "  angles," 
"triangles,"  "  base,"  and  "isosceles,"  and  having  been 
granted  certain  axioms  and  postulates,  I  can  demonstrate 
that  the  angles  at  the  basis  of  an  isosceles  triangle  are 
equal  to  one  another  ;  but  I  cannot  "  demonstrate  "  that, 
if  I  throw  a  stone  in  the  air,  it  will  come  down  again, 
though  I  am  perfectly  convinced  that  it  will  come  down, 
and  though  I  commonly  assert  that  I  can  "  prove  "  that  it 
will  come  down. 

Why,  your  whole  life  is  full  of  beliefs— as  certain  as  any 
beliefs  can  be— which  it  is  impossible  to  demonstrate  ! 
When  you  got  up  this  morning  did  you  not  believe  that 
your  razor  would  shave  and  your  looking-glass  reflect ; 
that  your  boiling  water  would  scald  if  you  spilt  it,  and 
your  egg  break  if  you  dropped  it ;  and  a  score  or  two  of 
other  similar  perfectly  certain  beliefs— all  entertained  and 
acted  on  in  less  than  an  hour,  but  all  incapable  of  demon- 
stration ?  But  you  maintain  perhaps  that  "  these  beliefs  are 
not  beliefs,  but  knowledge  based  on  the  uniformity  of  the 
laws  of  nature  ;  you  know  that  the  laws  of  nature  are 
uniform,  and  therefore  you  knew  that  your  razor  would 
shave."  But  how,  I  ask,  do  you  know  that  the  laws  of 
nature  are  uniform ?  "By  the  experience  of  mankind 
during  many  thousands  of  years."  But  how  do  you  know 
that  what  has  been  in  the  past  will  be  in  the  future— will 


74  FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION        [Letter  % 

be  in  the  next  instant  ?  "  Well,  if  a  law  of  nature  were 
broken — say,  for  example,  the  law  of  gravitation — the  whole 
Universe  would  fall  to  pieces/'  In  other  words,  you  and 
I  would  feel  extremely  uncomfortable,  if  we  existed  long 
enough  to  feel  anything  ;  but  what  does  that  demonstrate  ? 
Absolutely  nothing.  It  would  no  doubt  be  extremely 
inconvenient  for  both  of  us  if  any  law  of  nature  observed 
in  the  past  did  not  continue  to  be  observed  in  the  future  ; 
but  inconvenience  proves  nothing  logically.  It  is  no  doubt 
extremely  inconvenient  not  to  be  able  to  believe  that  your 
razor  will  shave  ;  but  what  of  that  ?  Where  is  the  demon- 
stration ?  And  remember  your  own  dictum, "  It  is  immoral 
to  believe  what  cannot  be  demonstrated." 

Perhaps  you  may  try  to  writhe  out  of  this  application  of 
your  own  principle  by  the  use  of  grand  terms  ;  "  The  Laws 
of  Nature  have  been  proved  to  be  true  by  experiment  as 
well  as  by  observation  ;  they  have  been  made  the  basis 
for  abstruse  calculations  and  inferences  as  to  what  will 
happen  ;  then  the  philosopher  has  predicted  '  this  will 
happen/  and  it  has  happened.  Surely  no  one  will  deny 
that  this  is  a  proof !  "  A  proof  of  what  ?  Of  the  future 
invariableness  of  the  sequences  of  Nature  ?  I  shall  not 
only  deny,  but  enjoy  denying,  that  it  is  a  proof ;  if  you 
mean  by  proof  such  a  demonstrative  proof  as  you  obtain 
in  a  syllogism,  where  the  premises  are  assumed,  or  in 
mathematics,  where  you  are  reasoning  about  things  that 
have  no  real  existence  but  are  merely  convenient  ideas 
of  the  imagination.  Believe  me,  this  distinction  of 
terms  is  by  no  means  superfluous.  You  and  your  young 
scientific  friends  are  continually  confusing  "  proof ''  with 
"  demonstration  ;  "  and  you  have  one  use  of  the  word 
"proof"  for  religion  and  another  for  science.  When  you 
speak  of  religion,  you  say  "  it  is  immoral  to  believe  in  it 
for  it  cannot  be  proved"  (meaning  "demonstrated"); 
when  you  speak  of  science,  you  say,  "  This  can  beproved" 


Letter  8]        FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION  75 

(not  meaning  "  demonstrated,"  but  simply  "  made  prob- 
able," or  "  proved  for  practical  purposes  "). 

You  may  discourse  for  hours  upon  the  Laws  of  Nature, 
but  you  will  never  succeed  in  convincing  any  one,  not  even 
yourself,  that  they  will  remain  valid  in  the  moment  that  is 
to  come,  by  the  mere  force  of  logic.     You  are  certain— so 
am  I   practically  quite  certain— that  the  stone  which  I 
throw  at   this  moment  up  in  the  air,  will,  in  the  next 
moment,  fall  to  the  ground.     But  this  certainty  does  not 
arise  from  logic.     We  have  absolutely  no  reason  for  this 
leap  into  the  darkness  of  the  future  except  faith,— faith  of 
course  resting  upon  a  basis  of  facts,  but  still  faith.     The 
very  names  and  notions  of  "  cause  "  and  "  effect "  are  due 
not  to  observation,  nor  to  demonstration,  but  to  faith.    The 
name,  and  the  notion,  of  a  Law  of  Nature  are  nothing  but 
convenient  ideas  of  the  scientific  imagination,  based  upon 
faith.     Take  an  instance.    We  say,  and  genuinely  believe, 
that  fire  and  gunpowder  "  cause  "  explosion  ;  that  explosion 
is  the  "  effect"  of  gunpowder  and  fire  ;  and  that  the  effect 
follows    the   causes    in   accordance    with    the    "laws    of 
nature  ; "    but  you  have  not  observed  all  this  and  you 
cannot  demonstrate  it.     You  have  merely  observed  in  the 
past  an  invariable  sequence  of  explosion  following  (in  all 
cases  that  you  have  seen  or  heard  about)  the  combination 
of  gunpowder  and  fire  ;  you  have  also  perhaps  predicted 
in  the  past  that  explosion  would  follow,  and  demonstrated 
that  it  did  follow  this  combination/as  often  as  you  pleased ; 
you  have  found,  or  have  heard  that  others  have  found, 
that  this  sequence  agrees  with  other  chemical  sequences, 
which  you  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  causes  and  effects  ; 
but  all  this  is  evidence  as  to  the  past,  not  as  to  the  future. 
Your  certainty  as  to  the  future  arises  not  from  any  de- 
monstration about  the  future,  but  from  your  faith  or  trust 
in  the  fixed  order  of  Nature,  and  from  nothing  else.    Now 
the  greater  part  of  the  action  of  life  deals  with  the  future. 


76  FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION       [Letter  8 

It  follows  therefore  that,  in  the  greater  part  of  life,  we  act, 
not  from  demonstration,  but  from  a  proof  in  which  faith 
is  a  constituent  element. 

Whence  arises  this  trust  in  the  uniformity  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  Universe  ?  We  can  hardly  give  any  other 
answer  except  that  we  could  not  get  on  without  it.  Having 
been  found  to  "  work  "  by  ourselves,  and  by  many  genera- 
tions of  our  forefathers,  this  faith  is  possibly  by  this  time 
an  inherited  instinct  as  well  as  the  inbred  result  of  our 
own  earliest  experiences.  But  when  we  analyse  it  we  are 
forced  to  confess  that  we  can  give  no  logical  account  of 
it.  Logically  regarded,  it  savours  of  the  most  audacious 
optimism,  arguing,  or  rather  sentimentalizing,  after  this 
fashion :  "  It  would  be  so  immensely  inconvenient  if 
Nature  were  every  moment  changing  her  rules  without 
notice  !  All  forethought,  all  civilization  would  be  at  an 
end  ;  nay,  we  could  not  so  much  as  take  a  single  step 
or  move  a  limb  with  confidence,  if  we  could  not  depend 
upon  Nature  ! "  Does  not  this  personification  of  Nature, 
and  trust  or  faith  in  Nature,  somewhat  resemble  our  trust 
or  faith  in  God  ?  I  think  it  does  ;  and  it  is  very  in- 
teresting to  note  that  the  very  foundations  of  science  are 
laid  in  a  quasi-religious  sentiment  of  which  no  logical 
justification  can  be  given. 

I  might  easily  go  further  and  shew  that,  even  as  regards 
the  past,  we  act  in  our  daily  lives  very  often  on  the  grounds 
of  faith  and  very  seldom  on  the  grounds  of  demonstration. 
On  this  I  have  touched  in  a  previous  letter  ;  but  your 
dictum  about  the  "  immorality  of  believing  what  cannot  be 
proved  "  makes  it  clear  that  you  are  hardly  as  yet  aware  of 
the  nature  of  the  ordinary  "  proofs "  on  which  we  act. 
How  few  there  are  who  have  any  grounds  but  faith  for  be- 
lieving in  the  existence  of  a  Julius  Csesar  or  an  Alexander  ! 
Yet  they  believe  implicitly.  Many  have  heard  these  two 
great  men  loosely  spoken  of,  or  alluded  to  ;  but  they  have 


Letter*}        FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION  77 

never  weighed,  nor  have  they  the  least  power  to  weigh,  the 
evidence  that  proves  that  Caesar  and  Alexander  actually 
existed.     Now  as  the  unlearned  are  quite  certain  of  the 
existence  of  a  Julius  Caesar,  so  are  you  too  quite  certain 
of  many  facts  upon  very  slight  grounds.     You  ask  one 
man  his  name  ;  another,  how  many  children  he  has  ;  a 
third,  the  name  of  the  street  in  which  he  lives,  and  so 
on  ;  how  certain  you  often  feel,  on  the  slight  evidence  of 
their  answers  (unless  there  be  special  grounds  for  sus- 
pecting them)  that  your   information   is   correct  !     The 
reason  is  that  all  social  intercourse  depends  on  faith  ;  if 
you  began  to  suspect  and  disbelieve  every  man  who  gave 
you  answers  to  such  simple  questions  as  these,  social  life 
would  be  at  an  end  for  you,  and  you  might  as  well  at  once 
retire  to  a  hermitage  ;  scepticism  in  matters  of  this  kind 
has  not  worked,  and  faith  has  worked  ;  and  this  has  gone 
on  with  you  from  childhood  and  with  your  forefathers 
from  their  childhood  for  many  generations.  Thus  faith  has 
become  a  second  instinct  with  you,  and  you  act  upon  it  so 
often  and  so  naturally  that  you  are  not  aware  of  the  degree 
to  which  it  influences  and  permeates  your  actions.     The 
cases  in  which  you  act  thus  instinctively  upon  very  slight 
evidence,  and  upon  a  large  and  general  faith  in  the  people 
who  give  the  evidence,  are  far  more  numerous  than  those 
cases  in  which  you  formally  weigh  evidence  and  attempt 
to  arrive  at  something  like  demonstrative  proof.    In  other 
words,  not  only  as  regards  the  future  but  also  as  regards 
the  past,  faith  is  for  the  most  part  the  underlying  basis  of 
action.     You  believe,  to  a  large  extent  and  in  a  great 
many  cases,  simply  because  "  it  would  be  so  immensely 
inconvenient  not  to  believe." 

I  claim  that  I  have  fulfilled  my  promise  of  shewing 
that  people  act  much  more  upon  faith  than  upon  demon- 
stration in  every  department  of  life  ;  and  I  now  repeat 
and  emphasize  what  I  said  before,  that  if  all  our  existence 


78  FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION        [Letter  8 

is  thus  dominated  by  faith,  it  is  absurd  to  attempt  to  ex- 
clude faith  from  any  religion.  But  if  our  special  religion 
consists  in  a  recognition  of  God  the  Maker  as  God  the 
Father,  then  it  is  more  natural  than  ever  to  suppose  that  our 
religion  will  require  a  large  element  of  faith  or  trust.  Just 
as  family  life  would  break  down  if  the  sons  were  always 
analysing  the  father's  character,  and  declining  to  believe 
anything  to  his  credit  beyond  what  could  be  demonstrated 
to  be  true,  so  religious  life  will  break  down,  if  we  treat  the 
Father  in  heaven  as  a  mere  topic  for  logical  discussion 
and  declare  that  it  is  "immoral  to  believe"  in  His  father- 
hood if  it  cannot  be  proved. 

Of  course  I  do  not  deny  that  you  must  have  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  the  Father  before  you  can  trust  in  Him. 
You  could  not  trust  your  parents  if  you  had  not  seen, 
touched,  heard  them — known  something  of  them  in  fact 
through  the  senses  :  so  neither  can  you  trust  God  if  you 
have  not  known  something  of  Him  through  the  senses. 
Well,  I  maintain  that  is  what  you  are  continually  doing. 
God  is  continually  revealing  Himself  to  us  in  the  power, 
the  beauty,  the  glory,  the  harmony,  the  beneficence,  the 
mystery,  of  the  Universe,  and  pre-eminently  in  human 
goodness  and  greatness.  Contemplate,  touch,  hear  ;  con- 
centrate your  mind  on  these  things,  and  especially  on  the 
perfection  of  human  goodness,  power,  and  wisdom  :  thus 
you  will  be  enabled  to  realize  the  presence  of  the  Father 
and  then  to  trust  in  Him.  Contemplate  also  the  Evolution 
of  the  present  from  the  past  :  the  ascent  from  a  pro- 
toplasm to  the  first  man,  from  the  first  man  to  a  Homer, 
a  Dante,  a  Shakespeare  and  a  Newton  ;  do  not  entirely 
ignore  Socrates,  St.  Paul,  St.  Francis.  You  cannot  indeed 
shut  your  eyes  to  the  growth  of  evil  simultaneously  with 
the  growth  of  good  :  but  do  not  fix  your  eyes  too  long 
upon  the  evil  :  prefer  to  contemplate  the  defeat  of  evil  by 
goodness,  especially  in  the  struggle  on  the  Cross  ;  and 


Letter  8]       FAITH  AND  DEMONSTRATION  79 

with  your  contemplation  let  there  be  some  admixture  of 
action  against  the  evil  and  for  the  good.  Do  this,  and  I 
think  you  will  have  no  reason  to  complain  of  the  want  of 
"evidence"  of  the  existence  of  One  who  has  made  us  to 
trust  in  Him. 

I  have  told  you  what  to  do  :  let  me  add  one  word  also 
of  warning  as  to  what  you  are  not  to  do.  You  are  not  to 
regard  the  world  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  neutral 
and  amused  spectator.  You  are  not  to  detach  yourself 
from  the  great  struggle  of  good  against  evil,  and  to  look 
on,  and  call  it  "  interesting.'*  That  attitude  is  fatal  to 
all  religion.  Reject,  as  from  the  devil,  the  precept  nil 
admirarij  better  be  a  fool  than  a  dispassionate  critic 
of  Christ.  'Again,  you  are  not  to  regard  the  world  from 
the  mere  student  point  of  view,  looking  at  the  Universe 
as  a  great  Examination  Paper  in  which  you  may  hope  to 
solve  more  problems  and  score  more  marks  than  any- 
body else.  High  intellectual  pursuits  and  habits  of  en- 
thusiastic research  are  sometimes  terribly  demoralizing 
when  they  tempt  a  man  to  think  that  he  can  live  above, 
and  without,  social  ties  and  affections,  and  that  mere  senti- 
ment is  to  be  despised  in  comparison  with  knowledge. 
This  danger  impends  over  literary  as  well  as  other 
students,  over  critical  theologians  as  well  as  over  scientific 
experimenters  ;  we  all  sometimes  forget — we  students — 
that,  if  we  do  not  exercise  the  habit  of  trusting  and 
loving  men,  we  cannot  trust  and  love  God.  To  harden 
oneself  against  the  mute  but  trustful  appeal  of  even  a 
beast  is  not  without  some  spiritual  peril  of  incapacitating 
oneself  for  worship. 


8o  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION 


IX 

My  dear , 

Your  grounds  of  objection  appear  to  be  now  changed. 
You  say  you  do  not  understand  my  position  with  regard 
to  Evolution,  as  I  described  it  before,  and  referred  to 
it  in  my  last  letter.  If  I  admit  Evolution,  you  ask  how 
I  can  consistently  deny  that  every  nation  and  every 
individual,  Israel  and  Christ  included,  "  proceeded  from 
material  causes  by  necessary  sequence  according  to  fixed 
laws  ;  "  and  in  that  case  what  becomes  of  such  metaphors 
as  "  the  regulating  hand  of  God,"  "  God  the  Ruler  of 
the  Universe  "  and  the  like  ?  It  is  a  common  saying, 
you  tell  me,  among  those  of  your  companions  who  have 
a  turn  for  science,  that  "  Evolution  has  disposed  of  the  old 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  a  God  :  "  and  you  ask  me  how  I 
meet  this  objection. 

I  meet  it  by  asking  you  another  question  exactly  like 
your  own.  I  take  a  lump  of  clay  and  a  potter's  wheel 
and  "  from  these  material  causes  by  necessary  sequence 
according  to  fixed  laws "  I  mould  a  vessel ;  is  there  no 
room  in  this  process  for  "  the  regulating  hand  of  man  " 
and  for  "  man  the  creator  of  the  vessel "  ?  In  other  words, 
may  not  these  "fixed  laws,"  and  that  "necessity"  of 
which  you  admit  the  existence,  represent  the  perpetual 
pressure  of  the  Creator's  hand,  or  will,  upon  the  Universe  ? 

By  Evolution  is  meant  that  all  results  are  evolved  from 
immediate  causes,  which  are  evolved  from  distant  causes, 
which  are  themselves  evolved  from  more  distant  causes  : 


Letter^  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  81 

and  so  on.  In  old  times,  men  believed  that  God  made 
the  world  by  a  number  of  isolated  acts.  Now,  it  is  be- 
lieved that  He  made  a  primordial  something,  say  atoms, 
out  of  which  there  have  been  shaped  series  upon  series  of 
results  by  continuous  motion  in  accordance  with  fixed 
laws  of  nature.  But  neither  the  isolated  theory  nor  the 
continuous  theory  can  dispense  with  a  Creator  in  the 
centre.  We  speak  of  the  "  chain  of  creation  ;  "  and  we 
know  that  in  old  days  men  recognized  few  links  between 
us  and  the  Creator.  Now,  we  recognize  many.  But, 
because  a  chain  has  more  links  than  we  once  supposed, 
are  we  excused  for  rejecting  our  old  belief  in  the  existence 
of  a  chain-maker  ?  Whether  things  came  to  be  as  they 
are,  by  many  creations,  or  by  one  creation  and  many 
evolutions,  what  difference  does  it  make  ?  In  the  one 
case,  we  believe  in  a  Creator  and  Sustainer  :  in  the  other 
case,  in  a  Creator  and  Evolver.  In  either  case,  do  we  not 
believe  in  a  God  ? 

What  then  do  your  young  friends  mean — for  though 
they  express  themselves  loosely,  I  think  they  do  mean 
something  and  are  not  merely  repeating  a  cant  phrase — 
when  they  say  that  Evolution  has  "  disposed  of  the  old 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  a  God "  ?  I  think  they  mean 
that  Evolution  is  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  such  a 
God  as  the  Christian  religion  proclaims,  that  is  to  say, 
a  Father  in  lieaven.  The  old  theory  of  discontinuous 
creation  (in  its  most  exaggerated  form)  maintained  that 
everything  was  created  for  a  certain  benevolent  purpose — 
our  hair  to  shelter  our  heads  from  the  weather,  our  eye- 
brows and  eyelashes  to  keep  off  the  dust  and  the  sun,  our 
thumbs  to  give  us  that  prehensile  power  which  largely 
differentiates  us  from  apes  ;  in  a  word,  paternal  despotism 
was  supposed  to  do  everything  for  us  with  the  best  of  in- 
tentions. The  new  theory  says  there  is  no  sufficient 
evidence  of  such  paternal  benevolence.     Our  hair  and  our 

G 


82  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

eyebrows  and  eyelashes  and  thumbs  came  to  us  in  quite 
a  different  fashion.  Life,  ever  since  life  existed,  has  been 
one  vast  scramble  and  conflict  for  the  good  things  of  this 
world  :  those  beings  that  were  best  fitted  for  scrambling 
and  fighting  destroyed  those  that  were  unfit,  and  thus 
propagated  the  peculiarities  of  the  conquerors  and  de- 
stroyed the  peculiarities  of  the  conquered.  Thus  the 
characteristics  of  body  or  brain  best  fitted  for  the  purpose 
of  life  were  developed,  and  the  unfit  were  destroyed. 
Although  therefore  a  purpose  was  achieved,  it  was  not 
achieved  as  a  purpose,  but  as  a  consequence.  There  is 
no  room,  say  the  supporters  of  Evolution,  in  such  a  theory 
as  this  for  the  hypothesis  of  an  Almighty  Father  of  man- 
kind, or  even  of  a  very  intelligent  Maker.  What  should  we 
think  of  a  British  workman  who,  in  order  to  make  one 
good  brick,  made  a  hundred  bad  ones,  or  of  a  cattle- 
breeder  whose  plan  was  to  breed  a  thousand  inferior  beasts 
on  inadequate  pasture,  in  order  ultimately  to  produce,  out 
of  their  struggles  for  food,  and  as  a  result  of  the  elimination 
of  the  unfittest,  one  pre-eminent  pair  ? 

When  he  expresses  himself  in  this  way,  my  sympathies 
go  very  far  with  the  man  of  science,  if  only  he  could  re- 
member that  he  is  protesting,  not  against  Christ's  teaching 
about  God,  but  against  some  other  quite  different  theory. 
Though  God  is  called  "Almighty"  in  the  New  Testament, 
we  must  remember  that  it  is  always  assumed  that  there  is 
an  opposing  Evil,  an  Adversary  or  Satan,  who  will  ulti- 
mately be  subdued  but  is  meantime  working  against  the 
will  of  God.  The  origin  of  this  Evil  the  followers  of 
Christ  do  not  profess  to  understand  ;  but  we  believe  that 
it  was  not  originated  by  God  and  that  it  is  not  obedient 
to  Him.  We  cannot  therefore,  strictly  speaking,  say  that 
God  is  the  Almighty  ruler  of  "  the  Universe  as  it  is."  God 
is  King  de  jure,  but  not  at  present  de  facto  (metaphors 
again  !   but  metaphors  expressive  of  distinct   realities). 


Letter  9]  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  S3 

His  kingdom  is  "  to  come:  "  He  will  be  hereafter  recognized 
as  Almighty  ;  He  cannot  be  so  recognized  at  present. 

I  know  very  well  that  I  can  give  no  logical  or  consistent 
account  of  this  mysterious  resistance  to  the  Supreme  God. 
But  I  am  led  to  recognize  it,  first,  by  the  facts  of  the 
visible  world  ;  secondly,  by  the  plain  teaching  of  Christ 
Himself.  Surely  the  authority  of  Christ  must  count  for 
something  with  Christians  in  their  theorizing  about  the 
origin  of  evil.  Would  not  even  an  agnostic  admit  that  as, 
in  poetry,  I  should  be  right  in  following  the  lead  of  a  poet, 
so  in  matters  of  spiritual  belief  (if  I  am  to  have  any 
spiritual  belief  at  all)  I  am  right  in  deferring  to  Christ?  It 
is  a  marvel  to  me  how  some  Christians  who  find  the 
recognition  of  miracles  inextricably  involved  in  the  life 
and  even  in  the  teaching  of  Christ,  nevertheless  fail  to 
see,  or  at  all  events  are  most  unwilling  to  confess,  that  the 
recognition  of  an  evil  one,  or  Satan,  is  an  axiom  that  under- 
lies all  His  doctrine.  In  the  view  of  Jesus,  it  is  Satan  that 
causes  some  forms  of  disease  and  insanity  ;  Satan  is  the 
author  of  temptation,  the  destroyer  of  the  good  seed,  the 
sower  of  tares,  the  "  evil  one  " — so  at  least  the  text  of 
the  Revisers  tells  us — from  whom  we  must  daily  pray  to 
be  delivered.  The  same  belief  pervades  the  writings 
of  St.  Paul.  Yet  if  you  preach  nowadays  this  plain 
teaching  of  our  Lord,  the  heterodox  shrug  their  shoulders 
and  cry  "  Antediluvian  !  "  while  the  orthodox  think  to 
dispose  of  the  whole  matter  in  a  phrase,  "  Flat  Mani- 
chaeism  !  "  But  to  the  heterodox  I  might  reply  that 
Stuart  Mill  (no  very  antiquated  or  credulous  philosopher) 
deliberately  stated  that  it  was  more  easy  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  an  Evil  as  well  as  a  Good,  than  in  the 
existence  of  one  good  and  all-powerful  God  ;  and  the 
orthodox  must,  upon  reflection,  admit  that  in  this  doctrine 
about  Satan  Christ's  own  teaching  is  faithfully  followed. 

Of  course  if  any  one  replies,   "  Christ  was  under  an 

G  2 


84  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

illusion  in  believing  in  the  existence  of  Satan,"  I  have 
no  means  of  logically  confuting  him.  But  I  think  there 
must  be  many  who  would  say,  with  me  :  "  If  I  am  to  have 
any  theory  in  matters  of  this  kind  which  are  entirely 
beyond  the  sphere  of  demonstration,  I  would  sooner 
accept  the  testimony  of  Christ  than  the  speculations  of 
all  the  philosophers  that  ever  were  or  are.  Christ  was 
possibly,  or  even  probably,  ignorant  (in  His  humanity)  of 
a  great  mass  of  literary,  historical,  physiological,  and 
other  scientific  facts  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  Jews. 
But  we  cannot  suppose  Him  to  be  spiritually  ignorant  ; 
least  of  all,  so  spiritually  ignorant  as  to  attribute  to  the 
Adversary  what  ought  to  have  been  attributed  to  God  the 
Father  in  Heaven. 

It  would  be  easy  for  you  to  shew  that  any  theory  of  Satan 
is  absurdly  illogical ;  nobody  can  be  convinced  of  that 
,  more  firmly  than  I  am  already.  Whether  Satan  was  good 
at  first  and  became  evil  without  a  cause  ;  or  was  good 
at  first  and  became  evil  from  a  certain  cause  (which  pre- 
supposes another  pre-existing  Satan)  ;  or  was  evil  from  the 
beginning  and  created  by  God  ;  or  evil  from  the  beginning 
and  not  created  by  God — in  all  or  any  of  these  hypotheses 
I  see,  as  clearly  as  you  see,  insuperable  difficulties.  If 
you  cross-examine  me,  I  shall  avow  at  once  a  logical 
collapse,  after  this  fashion :  "  Were  there  then  two  First 
Causes  ?  "  I  believe  not.  "  Did  the  Evil  spring  up  after 
the  Good?"  I  believe  so.  "Did  the  first  Good  create 
the  Evil?"1     I  believe  not.     "Did  the  Evil  then  spring 

1  Some  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  (notably  Isaiah  xlv.  7)  state  that 
God  "  created  evil ;  "  and  results  attributed  by  one  author  to  Satan  (1  Chron. 
xxi.  1)  are  attributed  by  another  to  "the  anger  of  the  Lord  "  (2  Sam.  xxiv. 
1).  Much  of  course  depends  upon  the  meaning  of  the  word  "evil  ;  "  and  I 
am  knowingly  guilty  of  talking  absurdly  when  I  first  define  evil  as  "that 
which  is  not  in  accordance  with  Gad's  intention,"  and  then  proceed  to  say 
that  "  God  did  not  create  evil."  But  all  people  who  discourse  philosophi- 
cally on  this  subject  talk  far  more  absurdly  than  I  do  :  for  I  am  consciously, 
but  they  are  unconsciously,  illogical.  The  belief  that  God  "created  evil," 
whether  held  or  not  by  the  authors  of  any  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
is  against  the  whole  tenour  of  the  teaching  of  Christ. 


Letter  g\  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  85 

up  without  a  cause?"  I  cannot  tell.  "Did  the  Good, 
when  He  created  the  Goodness  that  issued  in  Evil,  know 
that  he,  or  it,  contained  the  germ  of  evil,  and  would  soon 
become  wholly  evil  ? "  I  do  not  believe  this.  "  Whence 
then  came  the  Evil,  or  the  germ  of  the  Evil  ? "  I  do  not 
know.  "  Are  you  not  then  confessing  that  you  believe, 
where  you  know  nothing  ? "  Yes,  for  if  I  knew,  there 
would  be  no  need  to  believe. 

Here  you  have  a  sufficiently  amusing  exhibition  of  in- 
consistency and  ignorance  :  but  this  seems  to  me  of  in- 
finitely little  concern  where  I  am  dealing  not  with  matters 
that  fall  within  the  range  of  experience,  but  with  spiritual 
and  supernatural  things  that  belong  to  the  realm  of  faith, 
hope,  and  aspiration.  I  could  just  as  easily  turn  inside 
out  my  cross-examiner  if  he  undertook  to  give  me  a 
scientific  theory  on  the  origin  of  the  world.  No  doubt  he 
might  prefer  having  no  theory  about  the  origin  of  the 
world,  and  might  recommend  me  to  imitate  him  by 
having  no  theory  about  the  origin  of  Evil,  or  about 
the  nature  of  the  Supreme  Good.  But  my  answer 
would  be  as  follows  :  "  I  have  a  certain  work  to  do  in 
the  world,  and  I  cannot  go  on  with  my  work  without 
having  some  theories  on  these  subjects.  Most  men  feel 
with  me  that  they  must  have  some  answer  to  these 
stupendous  problems  of  existence.  As  the  senses  are 
intended  to  be  our  guide  in  matters  of  experience,  so  our 
faculty  of  faith  seems  to  me  intended  to  guide  us  in  matters 
quite  beyond  experience."  There  is  another  answer 
which  I  hardly  like  to  give  because  it  seems  brutal  ;  but 
I  believe  it  to  be  true,  and  it  is  certainly  capable  of  being 
expressed  in  the  evolutionary  dialect  so  as  to  commend 
itself  to  the  scientific  mind  :  "  An  agnostic  nation  will 
find  itself  sooner  or  later  unsuited  for  its  environment,  and 
will  either  come  to  believe  in  some  solution  of  these 
spiritual  problems  or  stagnate  and  perish.    And  something 


86  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

of  the  same  result  will  follow  from  agnosticism  in  the 
family  and  in  the  individual." 

From  this  doctrine  of  Christ  then  I  am  not  to  be  dis- 
lodged by  any  philosophic  analysis  demonstrating  that 
good  and  evil  so  run  into  one  another  that  it  is  impossible 
to  tell  where  one  ends  and  the  other  begins.  "  Is  all  pain 
evil  ?  Is  it  an  evil  that  a  sword's  point  pains  you  ?  Would 
it  not  be  a  greater  evil  that  a  sword  should  run  you  through 
unawares  because  it  did  not  pain  you  ?  Is  not  the  pain 
of  hunger  a  useful  monitor  ?  Has  not  pain  in  a  thousand 
cases  its  use  as  a  preservative?  Is  not  what  you  call 
li  sin  "  very  often  misplaced  energy  ?  If  a  child  is  restless 
and  talkative  and  consequently  disobedient,  must  you  con- 
sequently bring  in  Satan  to  account  for  the  little  one's 
peccadilloes  ?  If  a  young  man  is  over-sanguine,  reckless, 
rash,  occasionally  intemperate,  must  all  these  faults  be 
laid  upon  the  back  of  an  enemy  of  mankind?  Is  animal 
death  from  Satan,  but  vegetable  death  from  God  ?  And 
is  the  death  of  a  sponge  a  half  and  half  contribution  from 
the  joint  Powers  ?  And  when  I  swallow  an  oyster,  may  I 
give  thanks  to  God  ?  but  when  a  tiger  devours  a  deer,  or 
an  eagle  tears  a  hare,  or  a  thrush  swallows  a  worm,  are 
they  doing  the  work  of  the  Adversary  ?  Where  are  you 
to  begin  to  trace  this  permeating  Satanic  agency  ?  Go 
back  to  the  primordial  atom.  Are  we  to  say  that  the  Devil 
impelled  it  in  the  selfish  tangential  straight  line,  and  that 
God  attracts  it  with  an  unselfish  centripetal  force,  and  that 
the  result  is  the  harmonious  curve  of  actuality  ?  If  you 
give  yourself  up  to  such  a  degrading  dualism  as  this,  will 
you  not  be  more  often  fearing  Satan  than  loving  God  ? 
Will  you  not  be  attributing  to  Satan  one  moment,  what 
the  next  moment  will  compel  you  to  attribute  to  God  ? 
Where  will  you  draw  the  line  ? "  To  all  this  my  answer 
is  very  simple  :  "  I  shall  draw  the  line  where  the 
spiritual  instinct  within  me  draws  it.      Whatever  I  am 


Letter^  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  87 

forced  to  pronounce  contrary  to  God's  intention  I  shall 
call  evil  and  attribute  to  Satan."  Herein  I  may  go  wrong 
in  details,  and  I  may  have  to  correct  my  judgments  as  I 
grow  in  knowledge  ;  but  I  am  confident  that,  on  the 
whole,  I  shall  be  following  the  teaching  of  Christ.  My 
spiritual  convictions  accord  with  the  teaching  of  that 
ancient  allegory  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  which  tells  us 
•that  Satan,  not  God,  brought  sin  and  death  into  the  world. 
There  was  a  Fall  somewhere,  in  heaven  perhaps  as  well  as 
on  earth — "  war  in  heaven  "  of  the  Evil  against  the  Good 
— a  declension  from  the  divine  ideal,  a  lapse  by  which  the 
whole  Universe  became  imperfect.  It  has  been  the  work 
of  God,  not  to  create  death,  but  upon  the  basis  of  death 
to  erect  a  hope  and  faith  in  a  higher  life  ;  not  to  create 
sin,  but  out  of  sin,  repentance,  and  forgiveness,  to  elicit  a 
higher  righteousness  than  would  have  been  possible  (so  we 
speak)  if  sin  had  never  existed.  Similarly  of  disease,  and 
pain,  and  the  conflict  in  the  animal  world  for  life  and 
death :  good  has  resulted  from  them  ;  yet  I  cannot  think 
of  them,  I  cannot  even  think  of  change  and  decay,  as 
being,  so  to  speak,  "  parts  of  Goftsjirst  intention."  Stoics, 
and  Christians  who  imitate  Stoics,  may  call  these  things 
"indifferent:"  I  cannot.  And  even  if  I  could,  what  of 
the  ferocity,  and  cruelty,  and  exultation  in  destruction, 
which  are  apparent  in  the  animal  world  ?  "  Death,"  say 
the  Stoics,  "  is  the  mere  exit  from  life."  Is  it  ?  I  was 
once  present  at  a  theatre  in  Rouen  where  the  hero  took  a 
full  quarter  of  an  hour  to  die  of  poison,  and  the  young 
Normans  who  sat  round  me  expressed  their  strenuous 
disapprobation  :  "  C'est  trop  long,"  they  murmured.  I 
have  made  the  same  remonstrance  in  my  heart  of  hearts, 
ever  since  I  was  a  boy  and  saw  a  cat  play  with  a  mouse, 
and  a  patient  stoat  hunt  down  and  catch  at  last  a  tired- 
out  rabbit  :  "  It  is  too  long,"  "  It  is  too  cruel."  "  Did 
God  ordain  this?"— I  asked  :  and  I  answered  unhesitat- 


SS  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

ingly  "  No."  These  are  but  small  phenomena  in  Nature's 
chamber  of  horrors  :  but  for  me  they  have  always  been, 
and  will  always  remain,  horrible.  I  believe  that  God  in- 
tends us  to  regard  them  with  horror  and  perhaps  to  see  in 
them  some  faint  reflection  of  the  wantonly  destructive  and 
torturing  instinct  in  man. 

Those  are  fine-sounding  lines,  those  of  Cleanthes  : — 

01  be  ti  yiyverai  epyov  iiri  x@0Vi  0"ou  ^l'xa>  baifiov, 
TrXrjP  onocra  pe^ovai  kukoi  o-cfjerepyaiv  avoiais.1 

I  should  like  to  agree  with  them  ;  but  I  cannot.  The 
picture  of  the  cat  and  the  mouse  appears — fertile  in  sug- 
gestions. "  This  at  least,"  I  say,  "  was  not  wrought  by 
'  evil  men  in  their  folly  ; '  and  yet  it  did  not  come  direct 
from  God."  Isaiah  pleases  me  better  with  his  prediction, 
physiologically  absurd,  but  spiritually  most  true  :  "  The 
lion  shall  eat  straw  like  a  bullock."  That  is  just  the  con- 
fession that  I  need  :  it  comes  to  me  with  all  the  force 
of  a  divine  acknowledgment,  as  if  God  thereby  said  : 
"  Death  and  conflict  must  be  for  a  time,  but  they  shall  not 
be  for  ever  :  it  was  not  my  intention,  it  is  not  my  will,  that 
my  creatures  should  thrive  by  destroying  each  other." 

Applying  this  theory  to  Evolution,  I  believe  that  Satan, 
not  God,  was  the  author  of  the  wasteful  and  continuous 
conflict  that  has  characterized  it ;  but  that  God  has 
utilized  this  conflict  for  the  purposes  of  development  and 
progress.  This  is  what  I  had  in  my  mind  when  I  said 
that  Evolution  diminished  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
acknowledging  the  existence  of  a  God.  The  problems 
of  death,  destruction,  waste,  conflict  and  sin,  are  not  new  ; 
they  are  as  old  as  Job,  perhaps  as  old  as  the  first-created 
man  ;  but  it  is  new  to  learn  that  good  has  resulted  from 

1  u  Naught  is  on  earth,  O  God,  without  thy  hand, 
Save  deeds  of  folly  wrought  hy  evil  men." 


Letter  9]  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  89 

those  evils.  In  so  far  as  Evolution  has  taught  this,  it  has 
helped  to  strengthen,  not  to  weaken,  our  faith.  But  then, 
if  we  are  to  use  this  language,  we  must  learn  to  think,  not 
of  "  Evolution  by  itself,5'  but  of  "  Evolution  with  Satan. '" 
"  Evolution  without  Satan  "  would  appal  us  by  the  seeming 
wastefulness  and  ubiquity  of  conflict  and  the  indirectness 
of  its  benefits  ;  but  "  Evolution  with  Satan  "  enables  us 
to  realize  God  as  our  refuge  and  strength  amid  the  utmost 
storms  and  tempests  of  destruction. 

If  any  one  says  that  the  belief  in  Satan  is  inexpedient, 
I  am  ready  to  give  him  a  patient  hearing  ;  but  I  find  it 
difficult  to  listen  patiently  to  what  people  are  pleased  to 
call  arguments  against  it.  For  example,  "  Duty  can  exist 
only  in  a  world  of  conflict ;  "  to  which  the  reply  is  obvious, 
"  But  God  might  have  made  men  for  love  and  harmonious 
obedience,  and  not  for  duty  and  conflict."  This,  of 
course,  is  a  very  presumptuous  statement,  such  as  Bishop 
Butler  would  have  condemned  ;  but  it  is  a  fitting  reply  to 
a  still  more  presumptuous  implied  statement.  God  has 
revealed  Himself  as  Righteousness  and  Goodness  without 
internal  conflict ;  He  has  also  revealed  His  purpose  to 
conform  us  to  Himself ;  and  the  Bible  speaks  of  Him  as 
being  opposed  by  an  Adversary  who  caused  men  for  a 
time  to  differ  from  the  divine  image  ;  is  it  not  then  a  very 
presumptuous  thing  to  imply  that  "  God  could  not  have 
created  men  but  for  conflict  and  duty,"  or,  in  other  words, 
"  God  could  not  have  made  us  better  than  we  are,  even 
had  there  been  no  Adversary  opposing  His  will  ? "  Again, 
we  hear  it  said  that,  "  An  evil  Spirit  contending  against  a 
good  Spirit  must  needs  have  produced  two  distinct  worlds, 
and  not  the  one  progressive  world  of  which  we  have  ex- 
perience :  "  to  which  the  answer  is  equally  obvious,  "  The 
orbit  of  every  planet,  or  the  path  of  any  projectile,  shews 
that  two  different  forces  may  result  in  one  continuous 
curve." 


90  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

The  only  consistent  and  systematic  way  of  rejecting  a 
belief  in  the  existence  of  Satan  is  to  reject  the  belief  in 
the  existence  of  sin.  Then  you  can  argue  thus,  "  The  notion 
of  a  Satan  arises  from  the  false  and  sharp  antagonism 
which  our  human  imaginations  set  up  between  'good' 
and  '  evil/  whereas  what  we  call  '  evil '  is  really  nothing 
but  an  excess  of  tendencies  good  in  themselves  and  only 
evil  when  carried  to  excess.  The  difference  therefore 
between  good  and  evil  is  only  a  question  of  degree." 
That  theory  sounds  plausible  ;  but  it  ignores  the  essence 
of  sin,  which  consists  in  a  rebellion  against  Conscience. 
It  is  not  excess,  or  defect,  the  more,  or  the  less  ;  it  is  the 
moral  disorder,  the  subversion  of  human  nature,  which  is 
so  frightful  to  contemplate  that  we  cannot  believe  it  to 
have  proceeded  from  God.  But  perhaps  you  reply,  "  That 
very  disorder  is  merely  the  result  of  energy  out  of  place 
or  in  excess."  Well,  in  the  same  way,  when  gas  is 
escaping  in  a  room  in  which  there  is  a  lighted  candle, 
there  is  first  a  quiet  and  inoffensive  escape  of  the  gas, 
and  secondly  a  violent  and  perhaps  calamitous  explosion  ; 
and  you  might  argue  similarly,  "  The  difference  was  only 
one  of  degree  ;  the  explosion  was  merely  the  result  of  a 
useful  element  out  of  place  and  in  excess."  But  I  should 
answer  that  no  sober  and  sensible  hpuseholder  would 
justify  himself  in  this  way  for  allowing  a  lighted  candle 
and  escaping  gas  to  come  together  ;  and  so  I  cannot 
believe  that  God  is  willing  that  men  should  justify  Him 
for  tolerating  theft,  murder,  and  adultery,  on  the  ground 
that  these  things  are  "  only  questions  of  degree."  I  think 
we  please  Him  better,  and  draw  closer  to  Him,  when  we 
say,  "An  Enemy  hath  done  this."  And  besides,  for  our 
own  sakes,  if  we  are  to  resist  sin  with  our  utmost  force,  it 
seems  to  me  we  are  far  more  likely  to  do  so  when  we 
regard  it  as  Christ  and  St.  Paul  regarded  it  than  when 
we  give  it  the  name  of  "  misplaced  energy,"   or   "  an 


Letter^  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  91 

excessive  use  of  faculties,  in  themselves,  good  and 
necessary." 

To  me  it  seems  that  if  we  are  to  have  a  genuine  trust 
in  God.  it  is  almost  necessary  that  we  should  believe  in 
the  existence  of  a  Satan.  I  say  "  almost,"  because  there 
may  be  rare  exceptions.  A  few  pure  saintly  souls,  of  inex- 
tinguishable trust,  may  perhaps  be  able  to  face  the  awful 
phenomena  of  Evil  and  to  say,  "  Though  He  hath  done  all 
this  yet  will  we  trust  in  Him  ;  what  may  have  moved  Him 
to  cause  His  creatures  to  struggle  together,  and  to  thrive, 
each  on  the  destruction  of  its  neighbour,  we  know  not, 
and  we  are  not  careful  to  know  ;  our  hearts  teach  us  that 
He  is  above  us  in  goodness,  and  in  wisdom,  as  in  power  ; 
we  know  that  we  must  trust  Him  ;  more  than  this  we  do 
not  wish  to  know."  Such  men  are  to  be  admired— but  to 
be  admired  by  most  of  us  at  a  great  distance.  For  the 
masses  of  men,  and  especially  for  those  who  know  some- 
thing of  the  depth  of  sin,  it  must  be  a  great  and  almost  a 
necessary  help  to  say,  "The  Good  that  is  done  upon 
Earth,  God  doeth  it  Himself;  the  evil  that  is  upon  earth 
God  doeth  it  not :  an  Enemy  hath  done  this." 

One  evil  resulting  from  the  rejection  of  Christ's  doctrine 
is  that  we  consequently  fail  to  understand  much  of  His 
life  and  sufferings.  If  Christ  was  really  manifested  that 
He  might  destroy  the  works  of  the  Devil,  then  much  is 
clear  that  is  otherwise  incomprehensible.  There  was  then 
no  delusion  nor  insincerity  in  the  parables  of  the  Sower 
and  the  Tares.  God  did  not  first  cast  the  good  seed  and 
then  blow  it  away  with  His  own  breath.  God  did  not  sow 
wheat  with  the  right  hand  and  tares  with  the  left.  "  An 
Enemy"  had  done  the  mischief.  There  was  no  fiction 
when  Jesus  spent  those  long  hours  by  night  on  the  moun- 
tain top  in  prayer.  He  needed  help,  and  needed  it  sorely. 
He  was  fighting  a  real  battle.  It  was  not  the  mere  an- 
ticipation of  pains  in  the  flesh,  the   piercing  nails,  the 


92  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  {Letter  9 

parching  thirst,  the  long-protracted  death,  that  made  the 
bitterness  of  Christ's  passion.  Even  when  He  had  re- 
gained composure,  and  in  perfect  calm  was  going  forth  to 
meet  His  death,  we  find  Him  declaring  that  Satan  had 
asked  for  one  of  his  Apostles  "  to  sift  him  as  wheat,"  and 
implying  that  all  His  prayers  were  needed  that  the  faith 
of  the  tempted  disciple  should  not  "  fail."  But  in  Geth- 
semane  the  battle  for  the  souls  of  men  was  still  pending. 
There  was  an  Enemy  who  was  pulling  down  His  heart, 
striving  hard  to  make  Him  despair  of  sinful  mankind, 
perhaps  to  despair  of  we  know  not  what  more  beyond  ; 
forcing  Him  in  the  extremity  of  that  sore  conflict  to  cry 
that  He  was  "  exceeding  sorrowful  even  unto  death,"  and 
afterwards,  on  the  Cross,  to  utter  those  terrible  words, 
"My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  All 
this  is  full  of  profound  meaning,  if  there  was  indeed  an 
Enemy.  But  if  there  was  no  Enemy,  what  becomes  of 
the  conflict  ?  What  meaning  is  left  to  the  Crucifixion, 
except  as  the  record  of  mere  physical  sufferings,  the  like 
of  which  have  been  endured,  before  and  after,  by  thousands 
of  ordinary  men  and  women  ? 

This  belief  in  the  existence  of  Satan  appears  to  me  to 
be  confirmed  by  daily  present  experience  as  well  as  by 
the  life  of  Christ.  It  "  works."  It  enables  us,  as  no  other 
belief  does,  to  go  to  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  suffering,  and 
the  sinful,  and  to  preach  Christ's  Gospel  of  the  father- 
hood of  God.  All  simple,  straightforward  people  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  troubles  of  life  must  naturally 
crave  this  doctrine.  If  you  ascribe  to  Providence  the 
work  of  Satan,  they  will  consciously  or  unconsciously 
identify  Providence  with  the  author  of  evil,  and  look  to 
One  above  to  rescue  them  from  Providence.  Instead  of 
attempting  to  console  people  for  all  their  evils  by  laying 
them  on  the  Author  of  Goodness,  we  ought  to  lay  them 
in  part  upon  themselves,  in  >part  on  the  author  of  evil. 


Letter<j\  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  93 

"  God,  the  Father  in  heaven,  did  not  intend  you  to  be 
thus  miserable  " — thus  we  can  begin  our  message — "  your 
sufferings  come  from  an  Enemy  against  whom  He  is  con- 
tending. Do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  you  are  to 
put  up  in  this  life  with  penury,  disease,  misery,  and  sin 
as  if  these  things  came  from  God.  Very  often  they  are 
the  just  punishments  of  your  own  faults,  as  when  drunken- 
ness brings  disease  ;  but  as  the  sin,  so  also  the  punish- 
ment, was  of  Satan's  making,  though  God  may  use  both 
for  your  good.  You  are  to  be  patient  under  tribulation  ; 
you  are  to  be  made  perfect  through  suffering  ;  you  are  to 
regard  the  trials  and  troubles  of  life  as  being  in  some  sense 
a  useful  chastisement  proceeding  from  the  fatherly  hand 
of  God.  But  never  let  your  sense  of  the  need  of  resigna- 
tion lead  you  to  attribute  to  the  origination  of  God  that 
which  Christ  teaches  us  to  have  been  brought  into  the  world 
by  God's  adversary.  Satan  made  these  evils  to  lead  men 
wrong  ;  God  uses  them  to  lead  men  right.  Death,  for  ex- 
ample, came  from  Satan,  who  would  fain  make  us  be- 
lieve that  our  souls  perish  with  our  bodies,  that  friends 
are  parted  for  ever  by  the  grave,  and  that  there  is  no 
righteousness  hereafter  to  compensate  for  what  is  wrong 
here :  but  God  uses  death  to  make  men  sober,  thought- 
ful, steadfast,  courageous,  and  trustful.  It  remains  with 
you  to  decide  whether  you  will  bear  your  evils  so  as 
to  succumb  to  the  temptations  of  Satan,  or  so  as  to  pre- 
vail over  them  and  utilize  them  to  your  own  welfare  and 
to  the  glory  of  God.  On  which  side  will  you  fight  ?  We 
ask  you  to  enlist  on  the  side  of  righteousness." 

I  feel  sure  that  this  theory  of  life  would  commend  itself 
to  the  poor,  that  it  would  be  morally  advantageous  to  the 
rich,  and  that  it  would  be  politically  useful  to  the  State. 
There  has  been  too  prevalent  a  habit — among  those  be- 
li-evers  especially  who  ignore  Satan  and  attribute  all  things 
to  God — of  taking  for  granted  that  the  social  inequalities 


94  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  [Letter  9 

and  miseries  of  the  lower  classes  which  have  come  down 
to  us  from  feudal  and  non- Christian  times,  can  never  pass 
away.  I  remember  once  in  my  boyhood  how,  when  I 
represented  to  a  farmer  that  the  condition  of  his  labourers 
was  not  a  happy  one,  he  met  me  with  a  text  of  Scripture, 
"  The  poor  shall  never  depart  out  of  the  land  ;  "  and  that 
seemed  to  him  to  leave  no  more  to  be  said.  It  is  this 
provoking  acquiescence  of  the  comfortable  classes  in 
the  miseries  of  the  suffering  classes,  which  irritates  the 
latter  into  a  disbelief  of  the  religion  that  dictates  so 
great  a  readiness  to  see  in  the  miseries  of  others  a 
divinely  ordained  institution. 

The  time  will  soon  come  (1885)  when  the  very  poor  will 
demand  a  greater  share  in  the  happiness  of  life  :  and  the 
question  will  arise  Avhether  they  can  be  helped  to  obtain 
this  by  their  own  individual  efforts  or  by  the  co-operation 
of  those  of  their  own  class,  or  by  the  State,  or  by  the 
Church.  Caution  must  be  shewn  in  trying  experiments 
with  nations  ;  but  as  some  experiments  will  assuredly 
have  to  be  tried,  it  is  most  desirable  in  this  crisis  of  our 
history  that  the  Church  at  all  events  should  faithfully 
follow  Christ  by  regarding  physical  evil,  not  as  a  law  of 
fate,  but  as  a  device  of  Satan.  If,  by  descending  a  step 
or  two  lower  in  the  scale  of  comfort,  the  comfortable 
classes  could  lift  the  very  poor  a  step  or  two  higher, 
the  Church  ought  not  to  help  the  rich  to  shut  their  eyes 
to  their  obvious  duty  by  giving  them  the  excuses  of  such 
texts  as  il  The  poor  shall  never  depart  out  of  the  land," 
or,  "  Man  is  born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  upward." 
Poverty  is  often  a  good  school :  but  penury  is  distinctly 
an  evil ;  and  the  Church  should  regard  it  as  an  evil  not 
coming  from  God,  and  should  make  war  against  it,  and 
teach  the  poor  not  to  acquiesce  in  it.  The  Gospel  of 
Christ  would  be  made  more  intelligible  to  the  poorer 
classes  than  it  has  been  made  for  many  centuries  past,  if 


Letter  <}]  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  95 

it  could  be  preached  as  a  war  against  physical  as  well  as 
moral  harm.  Such  a  crusade  would  call  out  and  enlist 
on  the  right  side  all  the  combative  faculty  in  us  ;  it  would 
inspire  in  us  a  passionate  allegiance  towards  Christ,  as 
our  Leader,  desiring,  asking,  yes,  and  we  may  almost  say, 
needing  our  help  in  a  real  conflict  in  which  His  honour 
as  well  as  our  happiness  and  highest  interests  are  at 
stake  ;  it  would  attract  the  co-operation  of  all  faculties  in 
the  individual,  of  all  classes  in  the  country.  In  other 
words  the  theory  would  work  ;  and  so  far  as  a  religious 
theory  works,  so  far  have  we  evidence,  present  and  in- 
telligible to  all,  that  it  contains  truth. 

I  have  recently  heard  views  similar  to  mine  controverted 
by  an  able  ttieologian,  who  contended  that,  although  they 
professed  to  be  illogical,  they  went  beyond  the  bounds 
even  of  the  illogicality  permissible  in  this  subject.  But 
the  controverter's  solution  of  the  problem  was  this  : 
"  Evil  is  a  part  of  God's  intention.  We  have  to  fight, 
with  God,  against  something  which  we  recognise  to  be 
His  workr  Is  not  this  a  "hard  saying"?  Is  it  not 
harder  than  the  saying  of  Christ,  "  An  enemy  hath  done 
this  "  ?  I  say  nothing  about  its  being  illogical  and  absurd  : 
but  does  it  not  raise  up  a  new  stumbling-block  in  the  path 
of  those  who  are  striving  to  follow  Christ  ? 

It  may  be  urged  that  the  belief  in  Satan  has  been  tested 
by  the  experience  of  centuries  and  has  been  found  to  be 
productive  of  superstition,  insanity,  and  immorality  ;  but 
these  evils  appear  to  me  to  have  sprung,  not  from  the 
belief  in  Satan,  but  from  a  superstitious,  disorderly  and 
materialistic  form  of  Christianity,  which  has  perverted 
Christ's  doctrine  about  the  Adversary  into  a  recognition 
of  a  licensed  Trafficker  in  Souls.  The  same  materialistic 
and  immoral  tendency  has  perverted  Christ's  sacrifice  into 
a  bribe.  But,  just  as  we  should  not  reject  the  spiritual 
doctrine  of   Christ's   Atonement,  so    neither  should  we 


96  SATAN  AND  EVOLUTION  {Letter  9 

reject  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  an  Evil  in  the  world  resisting 
the  Good,  although  both  doctrines  alike  have  been  grossly 
and  harmfully  misinterpreted. 

Of  course  it  is  possible  that  in  our  notions  of  spiritual 
personality,  and  therefore  in  our  personification  of  Satan, 
we  may  be  under  some  partial  illusion.  The  subject 
teems  with  difficulties  ;  and  I  have  not  concealed  from 
you  my  opinion  that  some  passages  in  the  Old  Testament 
appear  to  support  a  view  at  variance  with  the  tenour  of 
the  New.  The  real  truth,  while  justifying  our  Lord's 
language,  may  not  accord  with  all  our  inferences  as  to  its 
meaning  ;  and  I  should  myself  admit  that  it  would  be  most 
disastrous  to  attempt  to  personify  the  Adversary  with  the 
same  vividness  with  which  we  personify  the  Father  in 
heaven.  Still, — in  answer  to  the  taunt  of  the  agnostic  or 
sceptic,  "Is  this,  or  that,  the  work  of  the  God  whom 
you  describe  as  Love  ? " — I  think  we  avail  ourselves  of 
our  truest  and  most  effective  answer,  when  we  resolve  to 
separate  certain  aspects  of  Nature  from  the  intention  of 
God,  and  to  say,  with  Christ,  "An  enemy  hath  done 
these  things." 


ILLUSIONS  97 


My  dear , 

I  see  you  are  still  violently  prejudiced  against  illu- 
sions, that  is  to  say  against  recognising  the  very  important 
part  which  they  have  played  in  the  spiritual  development 
of  mankind.  vYou  clearly  believe  that,  though  the  world 
may  be  full  of  illusions,  Revelation  ought  to  be  free  from 
them.  "  The  Word  of  God,"  you  say,  "  ought  to  dispel 
illusions,  not  to  add  to  them."  I  maintain  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  Word  of  God,  if  it  comes  to  earth,  must 
needs  come  in  earthen  vessels  ;  and  that  the  most  divine 
truth  must  needs  be  contained  in  illusion.  Let  illusions 
then  be  the  subject  of  my  present  letter.  At  the  same 
time  I  shall  attempt  to  answer  your  prejudice  against  the 
natural  worship  of  Christ  as  being  a  "new  religion." 
Not  of  course  that  I  admit  that  it  is  a  "  new  religion  ;  " 
on  the  contrary  I  regard  it  as  the  old  religion,  the 
predestined  God-determined  religion  to  which  we  are  to 
return  after  extricating  ourselves  from  the  corruptions  of 
Protestantism,  as  our  forefathers  extricated  themselves 
from  the  corruptions  of  Romanism.  I  shall  not  deal 
here  with  the  special  illusions  of  Christianity,  but  with 
your  evident  a  priori  prejudice  against  any  admixture  of 
illusion  with  Revelation. 

But  first,  what  do  I  mean  by  "  illusion/'  and  how  does 
my  meaning  differ  from  "error"  or  "mistake"  generally, 
and  from  "fallacy,"  "delusion,"  and  "hallucination"  in 
particular  ?     I   say  "  my  meaning,"  because  the  word  is 

H 


98  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  10 

often  used  loosely  (I  do  not  say  wrongly)  for  any  of  these 
synonyms  :  but  I  restrict  it  to  a  special  sense. 

"  Illusion,"  then,  is  wholesome  error  tending  to  the 
ultimate  attainment  of  truth  ;  "  delusion  "  is  harmful  error 
arising  from  a  perverted  Imagination  ;  "  hallucination"  is 
a  wandering  of  the  Imagination,  without  any  guidance  or 
support  of  fact,  involving  "  delusion  "  of  the  most  obstinate 
character  ;  "  fallacy  "  is  an  error  of  inference  or  reasoning  ; 
"mistake"  is  the  result  of  mal- observation  or  weak 
memory  ;  and  "  error  "  a  general  name  for  any  deviation 
from  the  truth. 

Illusion,  in  many  cases,  is  an  exaggerative  and  ornative 
tendency  of  the  mind.  It  leads  the  very  young  to  think 
their  parents  perfection,  and  the  young  to  think  them  far 
better  and  wiser  than  they  really  are  ;  it  constrains  the 
lover  to  exaggerate  the  beauty,  accomplishments,  and 
qualities  of  the  woman  whom  he  loves  ;  it  tends  to  the 
distortion  of  history  by  inclining  all  of  us  to  accommodate 
facts  to  the  wishes  and  preconceptions  of  our  idealizing 
nature,  which  is  always  longing  for  "  a  more  ample  great- 
ness, a  more  exact  goodness,  and  a  more  absolute  variety 
than  can  be  found  in  the  nature  of  things  ; "  1  and  it  lures 
us  onward,  young  and  old  alike,  over  the  rough  places  of 
life,  even  to  the  very  brink  of  the  grave,  by  the  ever-fleet- 
ing, ever-reappearing  suggestions  of  a  bright  to-morrow 
that  shall  make  amends  for  the  dull  and  commonplace 
to-day. 

These  illusive  hopes,  beliefs,  and  aspirations  are  never 
fulfilled  in  this  life  ;  but  even  the  cynic  and  the  pessimist 
must  acknowledge,  with  Francis  Bacon,  that  they  consti- 
tute the  very  basis  of  all  poetry  that  "tends  to  magnanimity 
and  morality."  Those  who  believe  in  God  will  further 
recognize  in  illusion  a  divinely  utilized  integument  for  the 
preservation   and  development  of  aspirations  that  shall 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  ii,  4,  5. 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  99 

ultimately  find  a  perfect  fulfilment  in  a  harmonious  co- 
operation with  the  divine  Love  and  in  the  unending  con- 
templation of  the  divine  Glory.  Nor  are  illusions  without 
a  present  practical  purpose.  Men  are  more  hopeful,  more 
active,  more  loving  on  account  of  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  even  optimists  must  acknowledge  that  no  man  should 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  truth  in  order  to  remain  in  what  he 
knows  to  be  no  more  than  a  comfortable  error.  The  venial 
illusions  of  childhood,  youth,  and  ignorance,  become  un- 
pardonable or  hypocritical  in  experienced  age.  Do  you 
ask  how  we  are  to  distinguish  "illusions"  from  "delusions"? 
The  answer  is  easy — on  paper  ;  but,  in  practice,  often  diffi- 
cult to  apply%.  However,  the  test  is  the  same  as  that  by 
which  we  distinguish  knowledge  from  ignorance.  Illusions 
"  work  ;  "  that  is  to  say,  men  are  on  the  whole  the  better 
for  them,  and  they  prepare  the  way  for  truth.  Delusions 
fail  ;  men  are  in  no  way  the  better  for  them,  and  they  often 
prepare  the  way  for  insanity  and  for  physical  or  spiritual 
death. 

We  have  spoken  of  moral  illusions  ;  let  us  touch  on 
another  kind  of  illusions  to  which  some  (I  do  not  say 
rightly)  have  given  the  name  of  "  illusions  of  sense." 

I  doubt  whether  the  name  is  correctly  given  ;  for  to  me 
it  seems  that  the  illusion  proceeds  not  from  the  senses 
(which,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  never  deceive  us)  but  from 
the  imaginations  and  inferences  which  we  base  upon  the 
report  of  the  senses.  Take  an  extreme  case,  fit  rather  to 
be  called  "  delusion  "  than  "  illusion."  If  I  see  the  phan- 
tom of  a  cat  before  the  fire,  which  cat  nobody  else  in  the 
room  can  see,  do  my  senses  deceive  me  ?  No  ;  but  I  am 
deceived  by  the  imaginative  inference  which  leads  me  to 
assume  from  past  experience  that  the  object  which  I  see 
is  visible  to,  and  can  be  touched  by,  everybody  else.  My 
visual  sense  (which  has  to  do  with  images  only)  reports — 
and  can  do  no  otherwise — that  it  discerns  the  image  of  a 

H  2 


ico  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  10 

cat.  That  report  is  true.  But  then  my  imagination  forces  on 
me  thebelief  that  this  is  an  ordinary  tangible  and  visible  cat. 
That  belief  is  false.  Or  take  again  the  not  infrequent  case 
of  colour-blindness.  I  am  a  signalman,  and  cannot  tell  a 
green  light  from  a  red  :  do  my  senses  deceive  me  when  I 
call  a  red  light  green  ?  No  ;  my  sense  reports  inade- 
quately for  my  necessities,  and  coarsely  as  compared  with 
those  who  possess  a  finer  sense  of  colour,  but  not  deceit- 
fully. My  error  arises  from  having  loosely  and  servilely 
used  the  distinctive  words  "  red  "  and  "  green  "  from  child- 
hood to  manhood,  although  my  senses  continually  protested 
that  they  could  not  distinguish  two  colours  corresponding 
to  the  two  words  :  but  I  imagined  that  there  must  be  some 
such  distinction  for  the  two,  and  that  I  must  be  capable 
of  recognizing  it,  because  everybody  around  me  recognized 
it.  If  we  are  to  say  that  the  signalman's  senses  deceive 
him  we  must  be  prepared  to  admit  that  every  man's  senses 
deceive  him  more  or  less.  Do  you  suppose,  when  you  see 
anything,  that  you  see  that  which  the  thing  is  ?  "  This  is 
a  yellowish-green,"  say  you.  "  Of  course,"  a  Superior 
Being  might  reply  ;  "  but  which  of  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty  shades  of  yellowish-green  is  it  ?  You  might  as  well 
tell  me,  when  I  shew  you  a  sheep,  '  This  is  a  bei?ig]  as  tell 
me  simply  this  is  'yellowish-green.'"  We  do  not  see 
things  as  Superior  Beings  see  them ;  but  we  are  not  on 
that  account  to  say  that  our  sight  deceives  us.  Our  visual 
sense  reports  the  truth  more  or  less  adequately  :  but  our 
Imagination,  prompted  by  insufficient  experience  and 
inference,  leads  us  sometimes  to  illusive  conclusions. 

Still,  although  "  illusions  of  sense  "  ought  perhaps  to  be 
rather  called  "  illusionsy>w/z  sense," — i.e.  illusions  arising 
"  from  "  the  report  of  the  senses,  but  not  illusions  in  which 
the  senses  are  themselves  deceived — no  one  will  deny  that 
such  illusions  exist.  Sometimes  they  are  exceptional,  but 
sometimes  so  common  as  to  be  almost  universal.     Let  us 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  101 

enumerate  a  few  and  ask  whence  they  spring,  and  what 
purpose  they  serve  ? 

They  spring  from  a  very  strong  conviction — erected 
upon  the  basis  of  Experience  by  Faith,  but  absolutely 
necessary  for  healthy  life  and  spontaneous  action — that 
the  ordinary  inferences  which  we  almost  instinctively 
derive  from  the  report  of  the  senses,  are  true,  that  is  to 
say,  will  correspond  to  experience  ;  and  that  we  can  act 
upon  them  without  formally  reasoning  upon  them. 

Take  the  following  instance.  Shut  your  eyes,  and  get 
a  friend  to  prick  the  back  of  your  hand  with  the  two  points 
of  a  pair  of  compasses  simultaneously,  so  that  the  two 
points  may  r^e  about  the  eighth  of  an  inch  apart  when  they 
touch  you  ;  you  will  feel — and  if  you  could  not  correct  the 
inference  by  the  sense  of  sight,  you  would  infer — that  only- 
one  point  is  pricking  you.  The  reason  is  that  the  skin 
of  the  back  of  the  hand  only  reports  one  sensation  ;  and 
the  mind  leaps  to  the  conclusion— owing  to  the  multitude 
of  past  instances  where  one  sensation  has  resulted  from 
one  object — that,  in  this  instance  also,  one  object  alone  is 
producing  the  sensation.  A  more  curious  instance  is 
the  following  :  Place  the  middle  finger  over  the  first  finger, 
and  between  the  two  fingers  thus  interlaced  place  a 
single  marble  or  your  nose  :  you  will  appear  to  be  touching 
two  marbles  or  two  noses.  The  reason  is  this  :  when  the 
two  fingers  are  in  their  usual  position  (not  thus  interlaced) 
and  touching  marbles  or  similar  objects,  two  simultaneous 
sensations  on  the  right  side  of  the  right  finger  and  on  the 
left  side  of  the  left  finger  would  always  imply  two  marbles  ; 
now  you  have  constrained  the  two  fingers  to  assume  an 
unusual  position  where  these  two  simultaneous  sensations 
can  be  produced  by  one  marble  ;  but  you,  following  custom, 
would  infer  the  presence  of  two  marbles,  if  sight,  or  other 
evidence,  did  not  shew  there  was  only  one. 

But  illusions  from   the    sense    of  touch   are    far  less 


102  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  io 

common  than  illusions  from  the  sense  of  sight.  We  all 
know  how  a  cloud  or  sheet  or  coal  may  be  converted  by  the 
Imagination  into  an  image  of  something  entirely  different 
and  visible  only  to  the  imaginer,  although  he  supposes 
that  others  "  must  see  it  "  too.  But  these  are,  so  to  speak, 
private  illusions  :  the  great  public  and,  at  one  time,  uni- 
versal illusion,  was  the  conviction  that  the  sun  and  the 
stars  move  and  that  the  earth  does  not  move.  There  is 
scarcely  any  illusion  more  natural  than  this.  Our  senses 
give  no  indication  whatever  of  the  earth's  motion  ;  but 
they  do  indicate  that  the  sun  and  the  stars  are  moving. 
So  complicated  a  process  of  reasoning,  and  so  much  ex- 
perience, are  needed  before  a  man  can  realize  (as  distinct 
from  repeating  on  authority)  the  causes  for  believing  in  the 
earth's  motion  that  it  is  by  no  means  surprising  that,  even 
now,  only  a  minority  of  the  human  race  believe  that  they 
are  dashing  through  space  at  the  rate  of  some  thousands 
of  miles  an  hour  ;  and,  except  during  the  last  three  hundred 
years,  the  illusion  that  the  earth  is  at  rest  was  universal. 
Another  common  illusion  from  sight  is  that  which  leads 
us  to  suppose  that,  when  we  see  anything  in  the  air,  a 
straight  line  from  our  eye  towards  the  image  which  we 
see  would  touch  the  object  itself:  whereas,  in  reality,  the 
image  is  raised  by  refraction  so  that  in  misty  weather  we 
see  an  object  considerably  higher  than  it  is,  and  I  suppose 
(to  speak  with  strict  exactness)  we  never  "see  "  an  object 
precisely  where  it  is. 

I  have  mentioned  a  few  of  the  "illusions  from  the 
senses  ;  "  and  now  you  will  probably  ask  me  what  purpose 
they  serve,  how  they  can  be  called  "  wholesome,"  and 
how  they  "  tend  to  the  ultimate  attainment  of  truth." 

They  appear  to  me  to  be  "  wholesome "  because  they 
represent  and  spring  from  a  wholesome  belief  that 
"  Nature  will  not  deceive  us  ;  Nature  does  not  change 
her  mind  ;  Nature  keeps  her  promises."     Sent  into  the 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  103 

world  with  but  little  of  the  instinctive  equipment  of  non- 
human  animals,  we  are  forced  to  supply  the  place  of  in- 
stincts by  inferences  from  sensation.  Now  if  we  were 
always  obliged  consciously  to  argue  and  deliberately  to 
infer,  whenever  the  sensations  hand  over  a  report  to  the 
Imagination,  we  should  be  at  a  great  disadvantage  as 
compared  with  our  instinct-possessing  compeers,  whom 
we  call  irrational.  "  This  inkstand  which  I  see  before  me 
was  hard  yesterday,  and  the  day  before — but  will  it  be 
hard  if  I  touch  it  to-day  or  to-morrow  ?  " — if  a  child  were 
to  argue  after  this  fashion  every  time  he  reached  out  his 
hand  to  touch  anything,  the  life  of  Methuselah  would  be 
too  short  for  the  ratiocinations  necessary  as  a  basis  for  the 
action  of  a  week.  For  healthy  progress  of  the  human  be- 
ing, trustful  activity  is  needed,  and  for  trustful  activity  we 
must  trust  Nature,  or,  in  other  words,  we  must  trust  these 
quasi-instinctive  inferences  about  Nature  which  we  derive 
from  our  sensations.  This  trust  or  faith  in  the  order  of 
material  things  within  our  immediate  observation,  I  have 
already  described  as  being  the  germ  of  a  trust  or  faith  in  a 
higher  order  altogether,  that  universal  order,  at  present 
imperfectly  realized,  which  we  call  the  Divine  Will. 

Now  when  we  say  to  Nature,  "  We  trust  you  ;  you  will 
not  deceive  us,"  Nature  replies  for  the  most  part,  "  You 
do  right ;  I  will  not  deceive  you  ;  you  will  be  justified  in 
your  faith."  But  occasionally  she  replies  in  a  different 
tone. 

"  Yes,  I  have  deceived  you ;  you  did  not  use  the 
means  you  had  of  obtaining  the  truth  ;  therefore  you  de- 
ceived yourselves,  or,  if  you  please  to  say  so,  I  deceived 
you,  in  order  that,  after  deceiving  yourselves  by  a  pro- 
longed experience,  you  might  learn,  while  trusting  my 
order  and  permanence  in  general,  not  to  trust  every  con- 
ception of  your  own  about  that  order  and  permanence  in 
particular. 


104  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  10 

u  Yet  in  reality,  what  you  call  my  '  deceptions '  were,  in 
part,  the  results  of  your  own  defects  (some  blameworthy, 
some  perhaps  inherent  and  not  blameworthy),  in  part  the 
results  of  my  method  of  teaching  mankind,  by  line  upon 
line  and  inference  upon  inference.  How  does  a  child  gain 
knowledge  ?  By  generalizing  from  too  few  instances  :  by 
inferring  too  soon  ;  then  by  enlarging  the  circle  of  in- 
stances from  which  he  generalizes  ;  by  correcting  his 
inferences  with  the  aid  of  experience  :  thus  the  progress 
of  every  child  towards  truth  is  through  a  continuous  series 
of  illusions.  But  when  I  break  each  one  of  your  false  and 
rudimentary  conceptions  of  my  Order,  I  always  reveal  to 
you,  concealed  in  the  husk  of  it,  the  kernel  of  a  better  con- 
ception. Thus  while  I  teach  you  daily  to  distrust  your 
own  hastily  adopted  and  unverified  assumptions  or  in- 
ferences about  my  Order,  I  give  you  no  cause  to  distrust 
my  Order  itself ;  and  by  the  self-same  act  I  strengthen 
both  your  faculty  of  scientific  reason  and  also  your  faith 
in  me.  You  may  find  fault  with  me  that  I  did  not  bestow 
on  each  one  of  you,  even  in  the  cradle,  the  perfection  of 
all  knowledge  and  wisdom.  Deeper  laws,  deeper  than  I 
can  now  speak  of,  forbade  that  rapid  consummation  : 
but,  since  that  could  not  be,  since  it  needs  must  be  that 
imperfection  should  be  in  the  intellectual,  as  well  as  in 
the  moral,  world,  rejoice  at  least  that  illusion  is  made 
subject  to  truth." 

Well,  after  this  long  but  needful  account  of  "  illusions," 
in  the  sense  in  which  I  use  the  term,  let  me  now  recur  to 
your  objection  that  "  the  Word  of  God  ought  to  dispel 
illusions,  not  to  add  to  them."  I  suppose  those  who 
believe  in  a  God  at  all,  will  in  these  days  regard  Him 
as  the  Maker  of  the  world,  as  a  whole,  in  spite  of  the  evil 
that  is  in  it.  Some  of  the  Gnostics,  as  you  know,  believed 
that  the  good  God  who  had  not  made  the  visible  world 
was  opposed  to  the  bad  God  who  had  made  it ;  but  with 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  105 

them  we  need  not  at  this  time  concern  ourselves,  as  there 
are  probably  none  who  now  entertain  that  belief.  Those 
then  who  believe  in  a  God,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth, 
will  not  deny  that  God  partially  reveals  Himself  to  men 
by  the  things  He  has  made.  Now  by  which  of  all  His 
creatures  does  God  reveal  Himself  most  clearly?  You 
will  say  perhaps — indeed  I  have  heard  you  say  it — "  By 
the  stars  and  their  movements."  I  do  not  believe  it.  I 
say,  il  By  the  life  of  the  human  family  first  and  by  the 
stars  of  heaven,  second."  But  I  will  assume  that  your 
answer  is  correct,  and  that  God  reveals  Himself  mainly 
by  the  movements  of  the  stars  of  heaven  ;  and  I  will  try 
to  shew  you  that  in  this  revelation  God  leads  men  to  truth 
through  illusion.  Then  I  think  it  must  seem  reasonable 
to  you  that,  if  God  does  not  dispense  with  illusion  in  that 
intellectual  revelation  of  Himself  which  most  closely 
approaches  to  a  direct  spiritual  revelation,  illusion  may 
also  have  been  intended  or  permitted  by  Him  to  play  an 
ordained  part  in  spiritual  revelation  itself. 

Where,  then,  I  ask,  in  all  the  teaching  of  Nature's 
school,  has  there  been  more  of  illusion  than  in  her 
lessons  of  astronomy  ?  When  I  was  a  boy,  I  remember, 
in  the  midst  of  a  hateful  sum  of  long  division  that  would 
not  come  out  right,  devoting  my  attention  to  the  sun 
moving  through  the  branches  of  certain  trees,  and  an- 
nouncing to  my  tutor  that  "  The  sun  moves."  "  No,  you 
are  mistaken."  "  But  I  cannot  be  mistaken,  for  I  saw  it." 
I  rivalled — I  exceeded — the  obstinacy  of  Galileo  ;  I  was 
ready  to  be  punished  rather  than  consent  to  say  what 
seemed  to  me  a  manifest  falsehood,  that  the  sun  did  not 
move.  Surely  this  boyish  experience  represents  the  expe- 
rience of  mankind,  except  that  the  tutor  who  has  corrected 
their  astronomical  illusions,  has  been  their  own  long,  very 
long  experience.  Does  it  not  seem  sometimes  as  if  God 
Himself  had  said,  when  He  made  the  heavens  to  declare 


106  ILLUSIONS  {Letter  10 

His  glory,  "  Being  what  they  are,  my  children  must  be  led 
to  knowledge  through  error,  to  truth  through  illusion "  ? 
It  may  be  said  that  in  some  cases  men  have  fallen  into 
astronomical  mistakes  through  their  own  fault  ;  through 
haste,  for  example,  through  the  love  of  neat  and  complete 
theories,  through  carelessness,  through  excessive  regard 
for  authority  ;  and  so  indeed  they  have.  But  is  it  always 
so  ?  When  you  and  I  last  walked  out  'together  on 
Hampstead  Heath,  you  took  out  your  watch,  as  the  sun 
went  down  over  Harrow,  and  said,  "  Now  he's  gone,  and 
it's  just  eight."  I  remember  replying  to  you,  "  So  it 
seems;  but  of  course  you  know  he  'went'  more  than 
eight  minutes  ago."  You  stared,  and  I  said  no  more  ;  for 
something  else  diverted  your  attention  at  the  time,  and  I 
felt  I  had  been  guilty  of  a  little  bit  of  pedantry.  But  I 
said  quietly  to  myself  as  we  went  down  the  hill,  "  I 
don't  suppose  he  knows  it,  but  the  sun  certainly  'went' 
eight  minutes  ago;  and  what  my  young  friend  saw  was  an 
image  of  the  sun  raised  by  the  refraction  of  the  mist,  like 
the  image  of  a  penny  seen  in  a  basin  of  water."  Well 
now,  was  this  your  fault,  this  error  of  yours  ?  No,  it  was, 
in  the  second  place,  the  fault  of  the  University  of  Oxford, 
which  has  bribed  the  schools  to  desist  from  teaching 
mathematics  to  any  boy  with  a  taste  for  classics  and 
literature,  so  that  you  had  to  give  up  your  mathematical 
studies  before  you  came  to  optics  ;  and  it  was,  in  the 
first  place,  the  fault  of — what  shall  I  say  ?  Shall  I  say  the 
fault  of  Nature  ?  That  means  the  fault  of  God.  Say,  if 
you  like,  that  it  was  the  fault  of  Matter,  or  of  an  Evil 
principle.  Say,  it  was  no  one's  fault.  Say  that  more 
good  than  harm  results  from  it,  in  the  way  of  stimulating 
thought  and  research.  Deny  it  was  a  fault  at  all.  Yet 
do  not  deny  that  it  represents  a  Law,  the  Law  of  the 
attainment  of  truth  through  illusion — a  Law  which  it  is 
folly  to  ignore. 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  107 

So  far  I  have  been  going  on  the  assumption  that  your 
answer  was  correct  as  to  the  means  by  which  God  mainly 
reveals  Himself.  But  now  let  us  assume  that  my  answer, 
and  not  yours,  is  correct,  and  that  God  reveals  Himself 
mainly  by  the  relations  of  the  family.  In  that  case  we 
must  agree  that  each  rising  generation  is  led  up  to  the 
conception  of  the  divine  fatherhood  mainly  by  the  pre- 
liminary teaching  of  human  fatherhood.  Now  surely  in 
the  domestic  atmosphere  refraction  is  as  powerful  and  as 
illusive  as  in  the  material  strata  of  the  air.  Nay,  the 
better  and  purer  the  family,  the  stronger  is  the  illusion. 
Unloving  children  may  be  logical  and  critical ;  but  what 
loving  child  does  not  idealise  a  good  mother  as  perfectly 
good,  and  a  strong  wise  father  as  the  perfection  of  wisdom 
and  strength  ?  To  the  good  child  the  parents  stand  in  the 
place  of  God  ;  and  it  is  his  illusive  belief  in  these  earthly 
creatures,  which,  when  it  has  been  corrected  and  purified, 
is  found  to  have  contained  and  preserved  the  higher  belief 
in  the  eternal  Father.  You  see  then  that  in  the  family 
no  less  than  in  science,  in  the  spiritual  as  in  the  intellectual 
side  of  Nature's  school,  the  pupils  pass  upwards  through 
illusion  to  the  truth. 

I  have  promised  to  say  nothing  of  the  special  illusions 
of  Christianity  which  I  must  reserve  for  a  later  letter. 

But  let  me  say  thus  much  from  the  a  p?iori  ground  on 
which  we  are  now  standing,  that  if  illusions  in  Nature  are 
most  powerful  in  her  noblest  and  most  spiritual  teaching, 
then,  so  far  from  there  being  a  prejudice  against  finding 
illusion  in  religion,  we  ought  on  the  contrary  to  be  prepared 
to  find  illusion  most  potent  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
purest  religion  of  all.  Was  ever  people  so  illusively  trained 
as  the  faithless  children  of  faithful  Abraham,  the  rejected 
Chosen  People  ?  Is  not  the  Promised  Land  to  this  day  a 
proverbial  type  of  illusion  ?  Do  we  not  recognize  illusion 
in  every  age  of  Christian  revelation  ?     And   if  the  very 


108  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  10 

Apostles  of  the  Lord  Jesus — so  much  I  will  here  assume — 
had  their  illusions  both  during,  and  after,  the  life  of  their 
Master  ;  if  the  early  Christians  had  their  illusions  also 
concerning  the  speedy  coming  of  Christ ;  if  in  the  Me- 
diaeval Church  and  in  the  later  Roman  Catholicism  there 
have  predominated  vast  illusions  about  transubstan- 
tiation,  the  powers  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  Pope  ;  if  the  Protestant  Churches  themselves 
have  not  been  exempt  from  illusions  about  the  literal  in- 
spiration and  absolute  infallibility  of  the  Bible  ;  is  it  not 
the  mark  of  astounding  presumption  to  suppose  that  for 
the  Anglican  branch  of  the  Reformed  Church  there  should 
have  been  reserved  a  unique  immunity  from  an  otherwise 
universal  law  ? 

But  possibly  you  think  that  the  Gospels  have  been  so 
long  in  our  hands,  and  the  Christian  religion  so  long  in 
practice  and  under  discussion,  that  nothing  new  can  now 
be  said  or  thought  about  them  ?  Just  so  Francis  Bacon,  in 
1603,  expressed  his  conviction  (the  innocent  philosopher!) 
that  there  had  at  last  come  about  a  complete  "  con- 
sumption of  all  things  that  could  be  said  on  controversies 
of  theology."  Reflect  a  moment.  How  long  have  the 
stars  been  with  us  "  under  discussion  "  ?  And  how  recent 
have  been  our  discoveries  of  the  real  truth  about  them  ! 
How  recently  have  these  discoveries  been  even  possible  ? 
In  the  same  way  the  exact  criticism  of  the  New  Testament 
has  only  become  recently  practicable.  The  subject  matter 
and  thought  could  of  course  be  appreciated  centuries  ago, 
and  often  perhaps  by  the  simple-minded  and  unlearned  as 
well  as  by  the  subtle  and  profound  theologian  ;  though, 
even  as  to  the  thought  of  the  New  Testament,  I  often 
think  that  we  are  greatly  to  blame  if  our  increased 
knowledge  of  history  and  psychology  does  not  illuminate 
much  that  was  dark  in  its  pages  for  those  who  had  not 
our  advantages.     But  we  are  speaking  of  that  kind  of 


Letter  10]  ILLUSIONS  109 

intellectual  criticism  which  dispels  illusions ;  and  for  the 
purposes  of  the  critical  analysis  of  the  First  Three 
Gospels,  Bruder's  Concordance  was  as  necessary  as 
Galileo's  telescope  was  for  the  discovery  of  Jupiter's 
moons,  or  the  thermometer  for  the  investigation  of  the 
laws  of  heat.  Other  influences  have  been  at  work,  as 
well  as  mere  mechanical  aids,  to  throw  light  on  the 
central  event  of  the  world's  history.  And  surely  if 
Abraham  could  wait  nineteen  hundred  years  for  the 
coming  of  Christ,  the  spiritual  descendants  of  Abraham 
— for  such  we  claim  to  be — may  well  wait  another  nine- 
teen hundred  years  to  realize  His  nature  and  enter  into 
the  full  meanjng  of  His  worship. 

You  see  I  am  not  now  trying  to  prove  the  existence  of 
any  illusion  in  our  present  form  of  Christianity  ;  I  am 
simply  arguing  against  your  prejudice  that,  if  the  present 
form  of  Christianity  be  not  true,  then  any  new  form  must 
necessarily  be  false.  You  say,  or  perhaps  till  lately  you 
were  inclined  to  say,  "  If  I  could  only  breathe  the  atmo- 
sphere of  Augustine !  If  only  I  could  have  been  a 
companion  of  the  Ante-Nicene  or  (better  still)  of  the 
Apostolic  Fathers  !  Or  (best  of  all)  of  the  Apostles  !  Or 
of  Christ  Himself !  Then  I  should  have  been  free  from 
illusions."  I  reply,  "  No,  you  would  not ;  and  your  as- 
piration is  a  mark  of  ingratitude  to  God.  You  deliberately 
reject  the  commentary  He  has  given  you  in  the  History 
of  the  Church  during  these  eighteen  centuries.  You 
think  the  story  of  Christ  is  completely  told  and  completely 
explained.  It  is  not  so.  All  the  created  world  is  in- 
tended to  bear  witness  and  illustration  to  His  life  and 
work.  Shakespeare  and  Newton  and  Darwin,  as  well 
as  Origen,  Augustine,  and  Chrysostom,  have  added  to  the 
divine  commentary.  All  the  good  and  all  the  evil  of 
eighteen  hundred  years  have  borne  witness  to  the  divine 
nature  of  His  mission  ;  to  the  impotence  and  ruin  which 


no  ILLUSIONS  [Letlerio 

await  the  nations  that  cast  Him  off;  to  the  blessing  that 
attends  those  who  follow  His  Spirit  ;  to  the  mischief  that 
dogs  those  who  substitute  for  His  Spirit  a  lifeless  code  of 
rules  or  a  fabric  of  superstitions." 

And  now  one  last  word  as  to  the  special  illusion  from 
which  (in  my  belief)  we  must  in  the  short  remnant  of  this 
century  strive  to  deliver  ourselves.  I  think  we  have 
worshipped  Christ  too  much  as  God,  and  too  little  as  Man. 
We  have  erroneously  supposed  that  He  exempted  Him- 
self during  His  manhood  from  the  laws  of  humanity. 
Like  the  Roman  soldiers,  we  have  stripped  from  Him  the 
carpenter's  clothes,  and  put  upon  Him  the  purple  rags  of 
wonder-working  imperialism,  and  placed  in  His  hand  the 
sceptre  of  worldly  ostentation,  and  in  that  guise  we  have 
bowed  the  knee  to  the  purple  and  the  sceptre,  and,  doing 
homage  to  these  things,  we  have  cried,  "  Behold  our 
God."  But  now  the  time  has  come  when  we  must  take 
from  off  Him  these  tawdry  trappings,  and  give  Him  back 
His  workman's  garments.  Then  we  may  find  ourselves 
constrained  to  bow  the  knee  again  in  a  purer  homage 
offered  no  longer  to  the  clothes  but  to  the  Man. 

Call  this  homage  by  what  name  we  will,  it  is  already  of 
the  nature  of  worship.  And  as  we  grow  older  and  more 
able  to  distinguish  the  realities  from  the  mirage  of  life, 
more  capable  of  trust,  love,  and  reverence,  and  better 
able  to  discriminate  what  must  be,  and  what  must  not  be, 
loved,  trusted,  and  revered — looking  from  earth  to  heaven, 
and  from  heaven  to  earth,  we  shall  ask  in  vain  where  we 
can  find  anything,  above  or  below,  nobler,  and  better, 
and  more  powerful  for  good,  than  this  Man  to  whom 
our  hearts  go  forth  in  spontaneous  love  and  trust  and 
reverence.  Then  we  shall  turn  once  more  to  the  Cross 
finding  that  we  have  been  betrayed  into  worship  while 
we  knew  it  not,  and  while  we  cry,  "  Behold  the  Man," 
we  shall  feel  "Behold  our  God." 


WHAT  IS  WORSHIP? 


XI 

My  dear , 

Admitting  the  doctrine  of  illusion,  and  dismissing 
all  prejudice  against  what  is  new,  you  declare  that  still  my 
position  remains  absolutely  unintelligible  to  you.  I  will 
set  down  yous  objection  in  your  own  words  :  "  Apparently 
you  maintain  that  Christ  is  a  mere  man  who  came  into 
the  world,  lived,  worked,  and  died  according  to  the  laws 
of  human  nature  ;  even  His  resurrection  you  apparently 
intend  to  explain  away  till  it  becomes  a  mere  vision,  and 
therefore  not  a  sign  of  any  other  than  a  human  existence. 
Now  worship  is  a  tribute  conceded  to  God  alone.  To  a 
mere  man,  who  lived  eighteen  centuries  ago,  how  can  you 
force  yourself,  by  any  effort  of  the  will,  to  pay  worship 
simply  because  you  have  reason  to  believe  that  this 
individual  was  pre-eminently  good  "  ? 

In  reply,  I  ask  you,  "  What  else  is  more  worthy  of 
worship?''  There  is  no  question  of  "forcing  myself" 
at  all.  I  worship  Christ  naturally.  That  is  to  say  I  love, 
trust,  and  reverence  Him  more  than  I  love,  trust,  and 
reverence  any  other  person  or  thing  or  universe  of  things. 
This  I  do  because  I  cannot  help  it  ;  and  if  I  have  brought 
myself  to  do  this  naturally  by  fixing  my  thoughts  on  the 
power  of  Goodness,  and  on  Christ  as  the  incarnate 
representation  of  Goodness,  this  causes  me  no  shame 
and  involves  me  in  no  conflict  with  my  Reason. 

But  you — have  you  not  omitted  some  important  features 
in  the  description  of  this  "mere  man"?     Jesus  was  not 


H2  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  [Letter  n 

only  pre-eminently  good,  He  was  also  pre-eminently 
powerful  and  wise  for  spiritual  purposes.  His  influence 
regenerated  the  civilized  world ;  it  is  manifest  around 
us.  He  Himself  spoke  of  Himself  in  language  which 
shews  that  He  believed  Himself  to  be  endowed  with  a 
divine  authority  over  men,  and  to  stand  in  a  unique 
relation  to  God.  In  a  fanatic  or  a  fool  that  would  mean 
nothing :  in  one  so  wise,  so  soberly  wise,  so  utterly 
unselfish,  so  marvellously  successful,  it  must  needs  count 
for  much.  Although  I  reject  the  miraculous,  I  do  not 
reject — nor  understand  how  any  one  can  reject — the 
supernatural.  I  regard  Jesus  as  being  a  "mere  man" 
indeed,  if  by  "  mere  man  "  you  mean  a  "  real  man  ;  "  non- 
miraculous,  subjected  to  all  the  material  limitations  of 
humanity ;  but  still  a  man  such  as  is  described  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel ;  the  Word  of  God  incarnate  ; 
the  Man  in  whom  was  concentrated  God's  expression  of 
Himself;  the  Divine  Perfection  made  humanly  percept- 
ible. This  I  believed  once  upon  the  authority  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  ;  but  I  believe  it  now  on  the  testimony  of 
history  and  my  own  conscience. 

Put  yourself  in  my  place.  Suppose,  as  I  suppose,  that 
Christ  was  what  He  was,  and  did  what  He  did,  naturally 
and  without  miracles.  Does  not  that  make  His  person- 
ality in  a  certain  sense  more  wonderful  and  certainly 
more  lovable  ?  It  is  comparatively  easy,  with  miracles 
at  command,  to  persuade  men  to  anything  ;  but,  without 
miracles,  to  introduce  a  new  religion,  to  bring  in  a  new 
power  of  forgiving  sins,  to  offer  up  one's  life,  not  for  friends, 
nor  for  country,  but  for  mankind,  to  manifest  oneself  so 
to  one's  disciples  during  life  that  after  your  death  they 
shall  see  you  and  shall  be  convinced  that  you  have 
triumphed  over  death  ;  to  disarm  an  armed  world  by  non- 
resistance,  and  to  breathe  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm  for 
righteousness   and   a   passionate   love   of  mankind   into 


Letter  n]  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  113 

myriads  of  a  remote  posterity — these  surely  are  feats 
which,  if  natural,  should  make  us  exclaim,  "  Verily  we 
have  here  a  divine  nature." 

I  trust  I  am  not  being  goaded  into  any  exaggeration  of 
what  I  really  feel,  by  the  hope  of  inducing  you  to  share 
my  feelings.  Perhaps  it  is  not  possible  to  worship  any 
man,  not  even  such  a  one  as  Jesus,  as  long  as  he  remains 
in  the  flesh.  Not  till  death  takes  a  friend  from  us  do  we 
seem  to  know  the  real  spirit  that  lay  behind  the  flesh  and 
blood ;  not  till  Jesus  was  taken  from  us  could  that  Spirit 
come  which  was  to  reveal  the  real  Being  that  underlay 
the  humanity  of  the  Nazarene.  I  will  admit  that  I  should 
not  have  worshipped  Jesus  of  Nazareth  on  earth — in 
Peter's  house  for  example  at  Capernaum  ;  for  though  love 
might  have  been  present,  the  trust  and  awe  that  were  to  be 
developed  by  His  resurrection  would  have  been  wanting. 
Jesus  does  not  claim  our  worship  nor  even  our  recognition, 
as  an  isolated  being,  but  as  inseparably  linked  to  One  with- 
out whom  He  Himself  said  He  could  "do  nothing".  It  was 
not  till  He  was  removed  from  the  visible  world  and 
enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  men  by  the  side  of  the  Father, 
that  men  could  perceive  His  real  nature ;  and  He  is  to 
be  worshipped  not  by  Himself,  but  as  the  Son  of  God, 
and  one  with  God.  Christ  did  not  merely  tell  us  about 
the  Father  ;  He  revealed  the  Father  in  Himself;  and,  if 
we  worship  the  Father  as  Christ  revealed  Him,  we  are, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  worshipping  the  Son. 

Almost  all  language  about  all  spiritual  existences  is 
necessarily  metaphorical.  What  is  "righteousness" 
except  a  straight cness,  and  what  is  "  excellence "  except 
pre-eminence  ?  The  proposition  "  Christ  is  the  Son  of 
God"  is  a  metaphor  ;  it  is  a  metaphor  to  say  that  " God 
is  our  Father  in  heaven,"  and  that  "  God  is  Love." 
Perhaps  even  to  say  that  "-God  is "  is  a  metaphor,  ex- 
pressing  a  truth,  but  expressing  it  inadequately.     But 

1 


ii4  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  [Letter  n 

it  would  be  the  ignorance  of  a  mere  child  to  suppose 
that  a  metaphor  means  nothing.  There  is  no  deeper 
truth  in  heaven  or  earth  than  the  metaphor  that  God  is 
the  Father  of  man,  and  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  His 
Eternal  Son.  When  I  try  to  think  of  God  and  to  pray  to 
God  as  my  Father,  I  can  think  of  Him  as  being  without 
the  seas,  without  the  stars,  without  the  whole  visible  world  ; 
but  I  can  never  think  of  Him  aright,  nor  ever  conceive  of 
Him  as  being  Love,  without  conceiving  also  of  One  whom 
He  loves,  who  is  with  Him  from  the  beginning;  whom 
when  I  try  to  realize,  I  can  realize  only  in  one  shape  ; 
and  hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  I  find  myself  without 
any  "  effort  of  the  will,"  spontaneously  worshipping  God 
through,  and  in,  and  with,  that  one  shape,  I  mean  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Worshipping  the  Father  I  find  that 
I  have  been  unconsciously  worshipping,  and  must 
consciously  continue  to  worship,  the  Eternal  Son. 

But  there  is  another  difference  between  us,  besides 
your  failure  to  recognise  the  spiritual  power  and  spiritual 
wisdom  of  Christ.  You  do  not  know  what  you  mean  by 
worship  ;you  do  not  know  what  you  ought  to  worship  ; 
and  you  do  not  know  how  little  you  know  of  God. 

You  tell  me  that  "  worship  is  a  tribute  conceded  to 
God  alone."  But  what  is  God  ?  The  absolute  God  no  one 
knows.  Our  most  perfect  conception  of  Him  is  only  a 
conception  of  a  Mediator  of  some  kind  by  which  we 
approach  Him.  To  each  man,  that  which  he  worships, 
and  that  alone,  is  God.  I  worship  Christ,  therefore  to  me 
Christ  is  God.  W7hat  will  you  say  to  that  ?  I  suppose 
you  will  say  "  A  non-miraculous  Christ  ought  not  to  be 
God  to  you  "?  Why  not  ?  How  does  He  differ  from  your 
conception  of  God  ?  Is  He  less  loving,  less  merciful,  less 
just  ?  "  No,"  you  reply,  "but  He  is  less  powerful."  How 
is  He  less  powerful  ?  Has  He  less  power  of  pitying,  loving, 
forgiving,  raising  men  from  sin  to  righteousness  ?  Is  He 


Letter  \i\  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP  ?  115 

less  powerful  in  the  spiritual  world?  "Perhaps  not  ;  but 
Heisless  powerful  in  the  material  world.  He  never,  accord- 
ing to  your  account,  rose  above,  never  even  for  a  moment 
suspended  the  laws  of  nature."  Indeed?  And  God,  the 
Maker  of  the  world— did  He  ever  rise  above,  or  suspend 
the  laws  of  nature  ?  When  ?  "  Well,  He  is  said  to  have 
done  so  frequently  in  the  records  of  the  Bible".  But 
many  men  deny  that,  and  you  yourself  are  disposed  to 
agree  with  them.  "At  all  events  He  did  so  when  He 
made  the  world." 

Here  at  last  we  can  come  to  an  understanding.  You 
look  up  to  God  as  to  the  Maker  of  the  world,  and  are 
more  ready  to  worship  Him,  as  such,  than  to  worship  a 
non-miraculous  Christ.  If  by  "  the  Maker  of  the  world  " 
you  mean — as  I  am  quite  sure  many  mean — "  the  Maker 
of  the  mere  material  forces  of  Nature,"  or  even  "  the 
Maker  of  all  things  apart  from  Christ*  then  words  fail 
me  to  express  how  entirely  I  differ  from  you.  But  let 
me  try  to  put  your  view  into  my  own  language,  in 
order  to  shew  you  that  I  do  not  condemn  it  without 
understanding  it.  "We  cannot,"  you  say,  "worship  a 
mere  non-miraculous  man,  who  did  nothing  but  talk  and 
lead  a  good  life,  and  perhaps  perform  a  few  acts  of  faith- 
healing,  however  beneficial  may  have  been  his  influence 
on  posterity.  The  fact  that,  after  his  death,  visions  of  him 
were  seen  by  excited  and  enthusiastic  followers,  and  in 
one  case  by  an  enemy  of  highly  emotional  tendencies, 
cannot  alter  this  decision.  It  is  impossible  to  worship  a 
being  so  helpless,  so  limited,  so  aweless  as  this.  W/hat  is 
such  a  creature  in  comparison  with  the  mysterious  Maker 
of  the  stars  or  Ruler  of  the  ocean  ?  Surely  the  sight  of 
a  storm  at  sea  ought  to  suffice  to  turn  any  one  from  the 
imaginary  and  self-deceiving  worship  of  the  merely  human 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  the  worship  of  One  whose  greatness 
and  glory  and   terror  surround  us   on    every  side  with 

I  2 


n6  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  \Letteni 

material  witnesses,    One  in  comparison  with  whom  no 
mere  man  may  be  mentioned.1' 

Natural  as  such  an  argument  may  seem  to  you  and  to 
many  others  who  call  themselves  Christians,  it  is  in  reality 
based  upon  a  diabolical  prejudice  in  favour  of  power.  I 
can  understand  our  forefathers,  worshippers  of  Thor  and 
Odin,  arguing  thus  :  and  so  great  is  our  own  inherited 
and  inbred  admiration  of  mere  force,  that  even  to  us 
Christians  the  temptation  is  still  very  strong  to  bow  down 
before  the  whirlwind  and  the  fire,  rather  than  before  the 
still  small  voice.  But  it  is  a  temptation  to  be  resisted  and 
overcome.  You  call  upon  me  to  worship  the  Ruler  of  the 
waves.  Now  the  sea  is  full  of  the  gifts  of  God  to  men  ; 
yet  if  I  knew  nothing  more  of  the  Creator  than  that 
He  had  made  and  rules  the  sea,  then — with  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  death  and  destruction  that  reign  beneath 
the  depths  of  ocean  among  its  non-human  tenants,  and 
of  the  destruction  that  reigns  on  its  surface  when  it  wages 
war  against  man  and  conquers — I  should  say,  "So  far  as 
the  sea  alone  reveals  the  nature  of  Him  who  made  it,  I 
would  a  thousand  times  sooner  worship  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
the  non-miraculous  man,  than  the  Maker  of  the  ocean." 
It  is  the  most  vulgar  and  contemptible  cowardice  to  cringe 
before  the  Maker  of  the  destroying  ocean — who  might  be 
the  Devil  and  not  a  good  God,  so  far  as  the  ocean's 
destructive  power  reveals  its  Maker— rather  than  to  do 
homage  to  the  best  of  men.  I  grant  that  in  a  storm  at 
sea,  with  the  lightning  blinding  my  eyes,  and  the  pitiless 
waters  tearing  my  companions  from  my  side  and 
threatening  every  instant  to  devour  me— I  grant  that  I 
might,  and  should,  feel  tempted  to  exclaim,  "A  mightier 
than  Christ  is  here."  But,  if  I  did,  I  should  be  ashamed 
of  it.  It  would  be  a  traitorous  tendering  of  allegiance  to 
Satan.  When  force  and  terror  and  death  come  shrieking 
on  the  wave-crests,  and  proclaiming  that  "  Power  after 


Letter  \\\  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP  ?  117 

all  is  Lord  of  the  world,"  then  is  our  faith  tested  ;  it  is 
"  the  victory  of  our  faith  "  to  overcome  that  lie  and  to 
make  answer  thus  :  "  No,  Goodness  is  Lord  over  the 
world  ;  Love  is  Lord  over  the  world  ;  and  therefore  He 
who  is  one  with  Love  and  Goodness,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  He  is  Lord  over  the  world.  Do  with  me  as  thou 
wilt,  thou  Mighty  Maker  of  all  things  !  If  Christ  was  not 
deceived,  thou  art  His  Father  and  I  can  trust  thee.  But 
if  Christ  was  deceived,  then  art  thou  Satan  and  I  defy 
thee,  be  thou  the  Maker  of  a  world  of  worlds.  Better  to 
perish  and  be  deceived  with  Christ,  than  to  be  saved  and 
caressed  by  a  Maker  who  made  Christ  to  perish  and  to 
be  deceived  !  If  there  be  in  truth  any  opposition  of  will 
between  the  Maker  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  then  is 
the  Lord  Jesus  the  superior  of  the  two  ;  and  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  alone  will  I  put  my  trust,  and  to  Him  alone  will 
I  cleave  as  my  Lord  and  my  Saviour  and  my  God." 

Have  I  made  my  meaning  clear  to  you  ?  I  do  not  say, 
Have  I  persuaded  you  that  I  am  right  ?  But  have  I  made 
you  understand  that  it  really  is  possible  for  one  who  has 
apprehended  even  imperfectly  the  illimitable  extent  of 
the  goodness  of  Christ  and  the  divine  nature  of  that 
goodness,  to  feel  heartily  and  sincerely  that,  of  all  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  and  in  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
the  goodness  and  power  and  wisdom  of  God  in  Christ  are 
the  fittest  objects  for  our  love,  our  trust  and  our  reverence, 
in  other  words,  for  our  worship  ?  Can  you  name  any 
fitter  object?  If  you  will  not  worship  God  in  the  man 
Jesus,  you  will  hardly  worship  Him  in  Socrates,  or  Paul, 
or  any  other  specimen  of  humanity.  Will  you  then  turn 
to  inanimate  nature,  and  worship  him  in  that  ?  Then  you 
will  be  turning  from  the  higher  to  the  lower  conception 
of  God.  Before  I  knew  Christ,  I  might  perhaps  have 
worshipped  God  the  Maker,  being  led  to  him,  so  to 
speak,  by  the  world  as  Mediator.     Inspired  by  awe  for 


nS  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP  ?  [Letter  II 

the  Creator  of  so  vast  and  orderly  a  machine,  I  might 
have  adored  Him  as  the  artificer  of  the  stars  and  this 
terrestrial  globe.  But  now,  Christ  has  made  this  kind 
of  "natural  religion"  impossible.  He,  the  ideal  Man, 
has  revealed  to  me  depths  of  love,  pity,  mercy,  self- 
sacrifice,  in  comparison  with  which  the  ocean  is  but  the 
"  water  in  a  bucket,"  and  the  stars  of  heaven  are  as  "  a 
very  little  thing."  If  therefore  I  try  to  conceive  of  God 
as  alien  and  apart  from  Christ,  God  becomes  at  once 
degraded  and  inferior  to  man. 

How  shall  I  try  to  express  myself  more  clearly  ?  Let 
me  use  words  not  my  own,  in  which  a  man  of  recognized 
ability  once  summed  up  for  me  my  own  conceptions  ;  "  I 
see,''  he  said,  "  you  do  not,  as  most  do,  worship  Christ 
out  of  compliment  to  God  ;  you  worship  God  out  of  com- 
pliment to  Christ.  "  The  words  then  sounded  to  me  a 
little  profane,  though  they  were  not  meant  to  be  so  ;  but 
I  had  to  confess  that  they  exactly  expressed  my  meaning. 
Since  then,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  these  words  were  but 
an  incisive  way  of  saying,  what  every  one  says  and 
few  realize,  that  Christ  is  the  Mediator  between  us  and 
God  :  we  worship  God  the  Father  because  we  attribute 
to  Him  the  character  that  we  adore  in  God  the  Son. 

By  this  time  you  will  have  seen  that  while  answering 
thequestion,  "Whom,  or  what,  ought  we  to  worship?"  I 
have  indirectly  answered  a  preliminary  question,  "What 
do  we  mean  by  worship  ? ;;  You  have  also  probably 
noticed  what  answer  I  have  given  to  this  question  : 
worship  appears  to  me  a  combination  of  love,  trust,  and 
awe.  Do  you  accept  this  ?  I  have  never  seen  any  serious 
objection  taken  to  this  definition  except  by  those  who 
refuse  practically  to  define  it  at  all  and  who  would  simply 
say  "  Worship  is  the  homage  paid  by  man  to  the  Creator  : 
and  it  has  nothing  to  do  with,  and  cannot  be  explained 
by,  the  feelings  with  which  we   regard  man."     If  I  had 


Letter  n]  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP  ?  119 

not  seen  this  in  the  columns  of  a  theological  journal,  I 
should  not  have  believed  it  possible  that  modern  super- 
ficiality and  conventionalism  could  achieve  quite  so  trans- 
parent a  shallowness.  The  sum  total  of  our  feelings 
towards  God — more  especially  our  awe  for  Him— cannot 
indeed  be  adequately  expressed  in  the  same  language 
which  expresses  our  feelings  for  men  :  but  that  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  saying  that  the  former  "  have  nothing 
to  do  with  "  the  latter.  I  believe  that  a  large  part  of  most 
men's  worship  consists  of  a  shrinking  from  an  Unknown, 
the  sort  of  dread  that  children  feel  for  "  the  dark."  But 
righteous  worship  must  imply  other  feelings  ;  and  these 
feelings — some  of  them  at  all  events — must  have  names  ; 
and  whence  are  the  names  to  be  derived  but  from  our 
feelings  towards  men  and  things — towards  men,  surely,  as 
well  as  towards  things  ?  We  must  either  love  God,  or  hate 
Him,  or  be  indifferent  to  Him  ;  we  must  either  trust,  or  dis- 
trust Him.  I  do  not  see  how  the  people  who  would  sever 
worship  from  all  reference  to  human  relations  can  look 
upon  it  as  other  than  a  mere  homage  of  the  lips  or  knees, 
a  going  to  church,  and  attendance  at  religious  services. 
Need  I  say  that,  when  I  define  worship,  I  am  defining  the 
worship  of  the  heart,  not  the  attitude  of  those  who  honour 
God  with  their  lips  but  whose  heart  is  far  from  Him  ? 

Now  the  attitude  of  man  to  God  has  varied  greatly  in 
accordance  with  their  conception  of  God,  according  as 
they  have  conceived  Him  to  be  Moloch,  or  Apollo,  or 
Jehovah,  or  the  Father  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  In 
some  men  worship  has  been  mere  terror ;  in  some,  it  has 
been  a  desire  to  bribe  ;  in  some  it  has  been  faint  gratitude 
and  strong  admiration  ;  in  some  it  has  been  intense  awe 
and  reverence.  All  such  forms  of  worship  have  been  im- 
perfect, and  some  have  been  very  bad.  At  the  best,  none 
of  them  have  combined  all  the  best  and  noblest  feelings  of 
aspiration  which  Nature  tends  to  develop  in  us  by  means 


120  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  {Letter  II 

of  human  and  non-human  agencies.      Human  nature — 
acting  through  the  relations  of  the  family — should  elicit 
love  and  loving  trust ;  non-human  nature — acting  through 
the  seas  and  skies,  with  their  suggestions  of  vastness  and 
power — should  elicit  awe  and  awful  trust  ;   and  the  com- 
bination of  these  two  natural  influences  should  elicit  love, 
trust  and  awe,  which  three-fold  result  constitutes  worship. 
Has   the  worship  of    God  through    the  mediation  of 
Christ  entirely  superseded — was  it  intended  to  supersede 
— the   worship    of    God   through   the   mediation   of   the 
visible   World?     I    think  not   yet.     It   will   in  the  end 
but  not  now.     There  may  come  a  time,  in  some  future 
existence,  when  we  shall  see  righteousness  like  the  sun, 
when  we  shall  have  visions  of  the  beauty  and  order  of  holi- 
ness like  the  stars,  and  behold  the  glory  of  sacrifice  spread 
out  before  our  eyes  like  the  firmament  of  heaven  ;  and 
then  the  revelation  of  God  through  visible  Nature  will  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  revelation  of  God  through  invisible 
Nature.     But  now,  not  many  of  us  can  pretend  to  such  a 
power  of  spiritual  insight.     We  feel  that,  if  we  learned 
the  story  of  Christ  without  the  help  of  the  commentary  of 
the   awful   powers  of  material    nature,  we  might  be    in 
danger  of  repeating  it  with  a  glib  familiarity  which  would 
hinder  us  from  penetrating  its  meaning.      Those  who  live 
in  the  stir  of  cities  where  they  are  doomed  never  to  be  alone, 
never  to  realize  perfect  silence,  never  to  see  more  than  a  few 
square  feet  of  sky,  are  living  as  the  Word  of  God  did  not 
intend  them  to  live ;  they  may  have — they  often  have — great 
spiritual  compensations  ;  they  certainly  have  some  spiritual 
disadvantage  in  these  unnatural  negations.     As  long  as 
we  have  eyes  and  ears  and  the  faculties  of  wonder  and 
admiration,  so  long  must  we  suppose  that  the  revelation 
of  the  Word  of  God  through  Jesus  of  Nazareth  has  not 
dispensed  with  the  revelation  of  the  Word  of  God  through 
the  forces  of  material  nature.     If  we  wish  to  approach 


Letter  n]  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  121 

God  we  should  not  despise  the  Mediation  of  the  Word  of 
God  in  its  entirety,  that  is  to  say,  the  mediation  of  "  the 
World  with  Christ." 

Now  what  practical  inferences  follow  from  our  defini- 
tion of  worship,  if  we  are  satisfied  that  it  is  roughly  true  ? 
Here  let  me  put  in  a  caution.  Our  definition  cannot  be 
exactly  true  ;  for,  in  its  exactness,  worship  means  the  sum 
total  of  all  the  feelings  that  should  be  felt  by  the  mind  of 
man,  when  he  contemplates  God  through  the  mediation 
of  "  the  World  with  Christ."  Who  can  enumerate 
these  without"  confessing  that  he  may  have  passed  over 
some  so  subtle  and  so  deep  that  language  itself  has  left 
them  unnamed  ?  We  must  therefore  be  content  with  a 
rough  definition.  But  if  it  be  roughly  true  that  worship 
means  love,  trust  and  awe,  what  practical  inferences  may 
we  thence  deduce  as  regards  our  own  conduct  ? 

First,  then,  worship  is  not  the  formal  thing  it  is  gener- 
ally supposed  to  be.  It  is  not  a  mere  smoothness  of  the 
hinges  of  the  knees,  or  a  readiness  to  take  the  name  of 
God  within  one's  lips.  It  is  a  natural  going  forth  of  the 
heart  to  that  which  one  loves,  trusts,  and  reverences  most. 
Some  men  have  little  power  of  reverencing  ;  others,  of 
trusting  ;  others,  of  loving ;  such  men's  worship  must 
necessarily  be  maimed  and  imperfect.  If  a  man  who  is 
destitute  of  reverence  loves  and  trusts  money  more  than 
anything  else,  money  really  is  that  man's  God  ;  it  is  no 
hyperbole,  it  is  the  fact ;  the  man  does  actually  worship 
money  ;  he  does  not  say  prayers  to  it,  does  not  go  down 
on  his  knees  to  it,  but  he  loves  it  and  trusts  it  more  than 
anything  else  ;  therefore,  so  far  as  he  can  worship  any- 
thing, he  worships  money.  Similarly  another  man  wor- 
ships pleasure  ;  another,  his  children  ;  another,  power. 
We  are  accustomed  to  apologize  for  such  expressions 
as  if  they  were  metaphors  or  exaggerations  ;  but  they 
are  not ;  they  are  plain  statements  of  spiritual  realities. 


122  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  [Letter  n 

Thousands  of  men  who  say  they  worship  Christ,  and  who 
honestly  suppose  they  worship  Christ,  do  nothing  of  the 
kind.  This  is  the  dark  side  of  the  self-delusion  of  wor- 
ship, but  there  is  a  brighter.  There  are  many  men  at 
the  present  day  who  call  themselves  agnostics,  but  who 
would  hardly  deny  that  they  love  and  reverence  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  more  than  any  other  being.  They  worship  Him 
then.  Their  worship  is  tinged  with  hopelessness,  and 
therefore  imperfect  ;  but  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  is  a  genuine 
worship  of  Christ.  Perhaps,  too,  some  who  profess 
mere  Theism  feel,  in  their  hearts,  that  though  they 
dislike  to  say  they  worship  Christ,  they  love  Christ  more 
than  they  love  their  conception  of"  God  without  Christ ;  " 
if  so.  may  we  not  say  that,  so  far  as  that  element  of  love 
goes,  they  worship  Christ  ?  Thousands  of  thousands  of 
people,  before  Christ  was  born,  worshipped  Goodness 
and  a  good  God  in  their  lives  and  hearts,  though  they 
were,  in  name,  worshippers  of  Apollo  or  Moloch.  Thou- 
sands of  people  in  the  same  unconscious  way  have  been, 
and  still  are,  worshipping  the  Incarnate  Christ.  They 
may  not  acknowledge  this,  they  may  not  even  know  it  : 
but  their  hearts  have  gone  out  to  Him  in  love  and  trust 
and  awe,  more  than  to  any  other  person  or  thing  in 
heaven  or  earth.1 

Search  your  own  soul  and  acknowledge  how  little  you 
know  of  God  ;  I  do  not  mean  how  little  you  profess  to 
know,  but  how  little  you  really  know  ;  how  very  much  of 

1  It  is  a  strange  but  common  mistake  to  expect  a  purer  morality  from  a 
conventional  Christian  than  from  a  heathen  or  an  atheist.  One  ought  to 
expect  less,  much  less.  The  man  who  can  be  familiar  with  the  character,  and 
acknowledge  the  claims,  of  Christ,  without  really  loving  Him  or  serving 
Him,  and  who  can  believe  all  that  the  Church  teaches  about  Him,  without 
at  all  believing  in  Him,  must  surely  be  far  below  the  atheist  who  now  and 
then  does  a  good  turn  for  humanity,  out  of  mere  pity  and  without  the  least 
hope  of  any  ultimate  triumph  of  goodness.  For  my  part,  I  am  quite  sur- 
prised at  the  apparent  goodness  of  conventional  Christians  :  but  I  think  they 
are  not  so  good  as  their  actions  would  imply.  They  are  forced,  by  tradition 
and  the  example  of  a  few,  to  keep  up  an  artificial  standard  of  morality  in 
some  departments  of  life. 


LctLr  \\\  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  123 

what  you  think  you  know,  is  but  second-hand  knowledge, 
scraps  of  sayings  repeated  on  authority,  but  not  repre- 
senting any  heartfelt  faith.  Then — after  deducting  all 
the  verbiage  that  you  once  esteemed  a  part  of  your  own 
belief — take  the  poor  residuum  of  your  conception  of  the 
Godhead,  and  put  it  by  the  side  of  your  conception  of  the 
Word  of  God  incarnate  in  Christ,  making  some  faint 
attempt  at  the  same  time  to  realize  the  stupendous  life  and 
character  of  Jesus.  Then  ask  yourself  in  what  respects 
the  former  conception  differs  from  the  latter  for  the  better. 
Lastly  ask  yourself  what  you  mean  by  worship — not  lip- 
worship,  or  knee-worship,  but  the  worship  of  the  heart  ; 
and  whether  your  heart  does  not  go  out  in  heart-worship 
as  much  towards  the  latter  as  to  the  former  of  these  two 
conceptions.  If  you  will  do  this  fairly  and  honestly,  my 
only  fear  would  be  that  you  might  find  that  your  con- 
ception of  God  Himself  was  too  weak  to  retain  its  grasp  on 
you  ;  but  if  God  still  held  His  place  in  your  heart,  then  I 
should  feel  confident  that  Christ  would  sit  enthroned  by 
His  side,  as  being  the  Son  without  whom  the  Father 
could  not  be  known,  worshipped  in  virtue  of  a  claim 
which  no  mere  performance  of  miracles  could  establish, 
and  which  no  mere  non-performance  of  miracles 
could    invalidate. 

The  sum  is  this.  In  Nature  there  is  evil  as  well  as 
good.  I  cannot  therefore  worship  the  Author  of  all  Nature, 
but  must  worship  the  Author  of  Nature-minus-the  evil. 
Where  is  He  to  be  found  ?  He  is  revealed  in  what  we 
recognize  to  be  good,  true,  and  beautiful.  Now  no  one 
man  can  include  in  his  life  all  that  we  mean  by  scientific 
truth,  and  artistic  beauty,  as  well  as  moral  goodness. 
But,  truth  being  a  harmony,  there  is  no  deeper  and  nobler 
truth  than  the  harmony  of  a  human  will  with  the  will  of 
the  Supreme  ;  and,  beneath  perishable  artistic  beauty, 
there  is  an  eternal  beauty  to  be  discerned  in  righteous- 


124  WHAT  IS  WORSHIP?  {Letter  u 

ness.  It  ought  not  therefore  to  surprise  us  that  the 
Eternal  Word,  after  endeavouring  for  thousands  of  years 
to  lead  creation  up  from  the  worship  of  Power  to  the 
worship  of  Goodness,  should  at  last  take  upon  Himself 
the  form  of  a  creature,  conspicuously  power] ess  from  the 
world's  point  of  view,  ignorant  of  science,  and  destitute 
of  outward  beauty,  but  of  a  goodness  so  divinely  beautiful 
and  so  true  to  the  underlying  Laws  of  spiritual  Nature, 
that  when  He  held  out  His  arms  and  called  upon  wandering 
mankind  to  come  to  Him,  the  enlightened  conscience  of 
humanity  sought  refuge  in  His  embrace. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  125 


XII 

My  dear , 

Your  'letter  of  yesterday  raises  two  objections, 
which  I  will  do  my  best  to  meet.  First,  if  I  regard 
Christ  as  God,  I  ought  not,  you  think,  to  stumble  at 
the  miracles,  but  to  welcome,  and  even  to  require,  them  ; 
and  secondly,  you  are  not  satisfied  with  my  definition 
of  worship.  Let  me  deal  first  with  your  first  objection, 
restating  it  in  your  own  words. 

"  I  admit,"  you  say,  "that  Jesus,  even  without  miracles, 
would  be  worthy  of  worship  in  your  sense  of  the  word  ; 
but  that  is  not  the  same  thing  as  regarding  Him  as  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God,  the  Creative  Word.  I  agree  with 
Plato  that  there  is  nothing  more  like  God  than  the  man 
who  is  as  just  as  man  may  be  ;  but  you  demand  more  of 
me  than  this  ;  you  wish  me  to  regard  Him  not  as  being 
merely  '  like  God '  but  as  '  being  God,'  '  very  God  of  very 
God.'  Surely  you  must  therefore  admit  that  Jesus  was 
exceptional,  and  not  '  in  the  course  of  nature  ; '  and  the 
introduction  into  the  visible  world  of  such  an  exceptional 
and  supernatural  Being  surely  makes  it  antecedently 
probable,  if  not  necessary,  that  He  would  bring  with  Him 
some  quite  exceptional  phenomena  in  the  way  of  evidence. 
The  Miraculous  Conception  and  Resurrection  of  Christ's 
Body  (if  only  they  were  true)  would  supply  just  the 
requisite  evidence  that  Jesus  was  the  Creative  Word, 
Lord  over  the  issues  of  life  and  death.     If  the  creative 


126  THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST         [Letter  12 

Power  of  God,  no  less  than  the  Righteousness  and  the 
Love  of  God,  was  incarnate  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  it  would 
have  been  no  less  manifest  in  His  life  and  works.  But 
you  desire  to  reduce  Him  to  a  being  in  no  way  distin- 
guishable from  other  men  except  by  superior  moral 
excellence.  There  is,  it  seems  to  me,  no  logical  connec- 
tion between  moral  excellence  and  creative  power.  TI12 
two  attributes,  being  generically  different,  demand  different 
kinds  of  evidence  to  substantiate  them. 

"  Again,"  you  continue,  "  even  if  I  put  aside  your 
contention  that  Jesus  is  the  Word  of  God,  there  remains 
your  assertion  that  He  is  sinless.  Now  a  sinless  Jesus  is, 
in  Himself,  a  miracle  ;  and  if  you  call  on  me  to  believe 
that  Jesus  was  without  sin,  you  ought  to  see  no  ante- 
cedent improbability,  nay,  you  ought  to  see  an  antecedent 
probability,  that  He  would  work  miracles." 

Well,  I  feel  that  we  are  walking  in  a  slippery  region — 
this  land  of  antecedent  metaphysical  probabilities  ;  but  I 
will  try  to  follow  you.  Let  me  take  your  second  objection 
first.  Does  it  then  really  seem  to  you  no  less  antecedently 
probable  that  the  Word  of  God,  made  man,  should  have 
the  power  (say)  of  walking  on  water,  than  that  He  should 
be  sinless  ?  Surely  we  see  in  the  best  men  approxima- 
tions to  sinlessness,  but  no  approximations  at  all  to  what 
spiritualists  (I  believe)  call  "  levitation  "  !  In  proportion 
as  men  approximate  to  our  conception  of  God,  in  that  pro- 
portion they  are  free  from  sin,  but  they  do  not  "  levitate  ;  " 
hence,  while  we  are  led  to  believe  that  the  Man  who 
completely  represents  God  (the  Word  of  God  Incarnate) 
will  be  absolutely  sinless,  we  are  led  to  no  such  conclu- 
sion as  to  "  levitation."  Or  will  you  maintain  that  the  best 
men  shew  any  germ  of  any  the  least  power  to  suspend 
any  the  least  law  of  nature  ?  There  is  no  vestige  of 
any  such  tendency  around  us  ;  and  your  only  support  for 
such  a  belief  would  be  found  in  the  miracles  of  the  Old 


Letter  12]         THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  127 

Testament,  which  you  yourself  deny,  and  as  to  which  I 
shall  have  something  to  say  in  a  future  letter. 

I  admit  however  that  there  is  one  seeming  argument 
derived  from  the  "  mighty  works  "  of  healing  undoubtedly 
worked  by  the  disciples  of  Jesus  as  well  as  by  Jesus  Him- 
self.   Without  anticipating  a  subject  that  must  be  deferred 
to  a  future  letter,  I  will  merely  ask  you  at  this  stage  to 
distinguish  between  those  "mighty  works"   on  the  one 
hand  which  were  marvellous  but  not  miraculous,  and  the 
"miracles"  on  the  other  hand  which,  if  true,  involved 
suspensions   of  the   laws   of   nature.      That   Jesus  may 
have   healed   certain    diseases  through   faith,   would   be 
acknowledged    by   the   most   sceptical    physiologists    as 
quite  possible  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature  ; 
and  this  power  would  be  consistent  with  such  a  faith- 
inspiring  personality  as  we  attribute  to  our  Lord.     Even 
from  ordinary  men  and  women  there  "  goes  out  virtue," 
we  scarcely  know  how,  to  the  sick  and  suffering  who  are 
imbued  with  their  hopefulness,  their  cheerfulness,  their 
faith  ;  much  more  might  we  suppose  that  from  the  Ideal 
of  Humanity  "virtue  "  would  probably  go  forth  in  unique 
measure  and  produce  unique  results,  though  always  in 
accordance  with  those  laws  of  material  nature  to  which 
He  had  submitted  Himself.     But  this  is  no  argument  for 
real   "  miracles  ; "   and — even   while    arguing — I  protest 
against  this  method  of  arguing  about  facts,  from  meta- 
physical  "antecedent   probability."     I   do  not  object  to 
the  argument  from  "  antecedent  probability  "  where  you 
can  appeal  to  experience  and  argue  from  what  happened 
in  the  past  to  what   is  likely  to  happen  in  the  future. 
But  where  you  can  have  no  such  evidence  (because  the 
Son  of  God  was  not  twice  incarnate)  ;  where  the  question 
is,  "Did  Jesus  do  this  or  did   He  not?"  and  where  we 
have  history  and  evidence  to  guide  us,  as   to  what  He 
did  and  said  ;  it  seems  to  me  we  ought  to  be  guided  by 


128  THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST         [Letter  12 

evidence  and  not  by  "  antecedent  probabilities,"  especially 
when  these  "  probabilities  "  are  derived  from  nothing  but 
metaphysical  considerations. 

But  you  tell  me  that  you  see  "  no  logical  connection 
between  moral  excellence  and  creative  power ; "  and 
another  passage  in  your  letter  says  that  "  we  have  no 
reason  for  thinking  that  the  best  men  shew  any  tendency 
to  approximate,  in  creative  power,  to  the  co-eternal  Word.;' 
What  do  you  thence  infer  ?  Apparently  this,  that,  as 
Christ  revealed  God's  righteousness  and  love  by  His  own 
righteousness  and  love,  so  He  must  have  revealed  God's 
creative  power  by  His  own  creative  acts.  I,  too,  believe 
that.  But  by  what  creative  acts  ?  By  changing  water 
into  wine,  or  seven  loaves  into  seven  thousand  loaves,  or 
three  fishes  into  three  thousand  fishes  ?  Think  of  it 
seriously.  Do  these  two  or  three  abrupt  and  dislocated 
achievements  appear  to  you  adequately  to  represent  the 
quiet,  gradual,  orderly,  creative  power  of  the  true  Word 
of  God,  by  whom  the  heavens  were  made  ?  For  my  part 
I  see  a  noble  meaning  in  your  words,  but  the  meaning  I 
see  in  them  is  not  what  you  mean.  It  was  necessary — so 
far  I  agree  with  you — that  the  Incarnate  Word  should 
manifest  God's  creative  Power  as  well  as  His  Love  and 
Righteousness.  But  how  ?  Can  you  not  answer  for  your- 
self without  my  prompting  ?  Does  not  your  own  con- 
science suggest  to  you  what  is  the  highest  effort  of  creative 
power  ?  Are  we  not  taught — and  do  not  our  hearts 
respond  to  the  teaching — that  God  is  a  Spirit  ?  And,  if 
God  is  a  Spirit,  must  not  the  highest  kind  of  creation 
be,  not  material,  but  spiritual  ? 

Now  I  maintain  that  it  is  a  greater,  more  sublime, 
and  more  God-like  act  to  create  righteousness  in  accord- 
ance with  God's  spiritual  laws  than  to  create  loaves  and 
fishes  and  wine  against  God's  material  laws.  And  I 
maintain  also — in  opposition  to  your  opinion — that  "  the 


Letter  12]         THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  129 

best  men  "  do  manifest  "  a  tendency  to  approximate  in 
creative  power  to  the  co-eternal  Word,"  so  far  as  con- 
cerns this,  the  highest  kind  of  creation.  It  is  hard,  very- 
hard,  for  us  to  realize — in  spite  of  the  teaching  of  the 
prophets  in  old  times  and  of  the  great  English  poets  in 
our  own  days — that  the  creation  of  the  heaven  and  the 
earth  is  "  a  very  little  thing,  a  drop  of  a  bucket,"  as  com- 
pared with  the  creation  of  righteousness.  It  is  a  desperate 
struggle,  this  battle  of  the  spirit  against  matter,  of  the  in- 
visible against  the  visible,  before  we  can  believe,  with  all 
our  being — with  our  minds  as  well  as  our  hearts — that  the 
creation  described  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  was  more  divine  than  that  described  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  But  it  was  so.  The 
first  creation  of  orderly  matter  was  but  a  shadowy,  un- 
substantial metaphor,  predicting  the  second  creation  of 
orderly  spirit.  "All  things  were  made  by  him,  and  with- 
out him  was  not  anything  made  that  was  made  : "  so 
writes  the  Evangelist,  describing  the  first,  and  proceeding 
to  describe  the  second,  creation  :  and  he  continues  thus, 
"  In  him  was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men."  To 
the  same  effect  writes  St.  Paul :  "  The  first  Adam  became 
a  living  soul.  The  last  Adam  became  a  life-giving  spirit." 
Is  it  not  possible,  on  the  testimony  of  one's  own  con- 
science, and  on  the  testimony  of  history  present  and  past, 
and  on  the  testimony  of  the  Apostles  and  Evangelists — 
even  when  critically  reviewed  and  disencumbered  of  the 
miraculous  element — to  acknowledge  that  Jesus  has  been 
indeed  "  a  life-giving  Spirit ;'  to  mankind,  and  to  wor- 
ship Him  as  representing  the  Creative  Word  who  has 
moved  on  the  face  of  the  material  and  of  the  spiritual 
waters,  creating  order  alike  in  the  matter  of  the  Universe 
and  in  the  minds  and  consciences  of  men  ? 

And  now  to  deal  with  your  second  objection  (directed 
against  my  definition  of  worship)  which  I  will  repeat  in 


130  THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  [Letter  12 

your  own  words  : — "You  define  worship  as  consisting  of 
the  sentiments  of  love,  trust,  and  awe.  I  confess  this 
does  not  express  all  my  notion  of  worship.  Such  senti- 
ments I  have  felt  towards  my  teachers,  whether  dead  or 
living,  but  I  do  not  consider  that  I  worship  them.  When 
we  apply  the  word  to  God,  we  mean  by  it  a  direct  act  of 
communion — or  at  least  a  real  effort  after  communion — 
between  two  minds.  When  I  pray  to  God,  I  believe  my- 
self to  be  directing  my  thoughts  towards  a  Being  with 
whom  I  am  spiritually  in  direct  and  immediate  relation — 
the  Maker  of  all,  my  Maker  and  Father.  But  I  cannot 
persuade  myself  that  I  stand  in  a  like  relation  to  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  We  do  not  pray  to  Paul  or  Plato,  and  I  do 
not  see  any  such  difference  in  the  historical  manifestations 
of  Jesus  as  should  lead  me  to  believe  that  I,  and  millions 
of  other  believers,  can  make  my  thoughts  known  to  him, 
and  can  receive  back  impressions  from  him,  when  we 
cannot  do  so  to  other  minds  which  have  helped  to  change 
the  world's  history  and  have  been  revealers  of  the 
Father." 

Are  you  not  here  confusing  a  state  of  mind  with  an 
action  resulting  from  that  state  of  mind  ?  WTe  have  been 
speaking,  not  of  lip-worship,  but  of  heart-worship,  defin- 
ing it  as  a  state  of  mind.  Now  is  not  prayer  the  result 
of  worship,  rather  than  identical  with  worship,  as  we  have 
defined  it  above  ?  A  child  feels  love,  and  trust,  as  well  as 
reverence,  for  its  parents  ;  and,  in  consequence  he  asks 
them  to  grant  his  desires,  or  he  thanks  them  for  kindnesses  ; 
but  yet  the  asking  and  thanking  are  not  identical  with  the 
feelings  of  the  children  towards  their  parents,  but  spring 
from  those  feelings.  Similarly  we,  feeling  a  trust  and  an 
awe  for  the  Maker  and  Father,  far  beyond  what  we  can 
feel  for  Paul  or  Plato,  impart  to  Him  our  petitions  for  our 
highest  needs,  or  offer  Him  our  thanks  :  but  this  asking 
and  this  thanking  are  not  identical  with,  but  the  results 


Letter  12]         THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  131 

of,  the  feelings  we  entertain  towards  God.  What  you  really- 
mean  is  that  your  love,  trust,  and  awe  towards  God  so  far 
transcend  those  corresponding  feelings  when  entertained 
by  you  for  your  fellow-creatures,  that  you  ask  from  Him 
things  which  you  would  never  dream  of  asking  from  them. 
Moreover  you  consider  (rightly  or  wrongly)  that  a  dead 
or  absent  man  cannot  enter  into  communion  with  you, 
but  that  God  is  superior  to  death  and  to  the  limitations 
of  space,  and  that  He  alone  can  always  hear  and  always 
answer  ;  and  this  you  appear  to  think  a  non-miraculous 
Christ  cannot  do. 

Well,  here  I  confess  there  is  a  vast  difference  between 
us  ;  for  I  feel  sure  that  Christ  can  do  this.  You  say,  I 
do  not  "  pray  to  Paul  and  Plato :"  I  do  not,  though  I 
sometimes  think  that  it  would  be  better  to  pray  to  Paul 
or  Plato  than  to  the  sun  or  moon.  But  I  do  not  find 
Paul,  I  do  not  find  Plato,  claiming  power  to  forgive  sins  ; 
or  declaring  that  he  came  to  die  for  mankind  and  that 
his  blood  was  to  be  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins  ;  or 
predicting  that  he  should  be  slain  and  that  he  should  rise 
from  the  dead  ;  or  promising  that  whatsoever  his  disciples 
asked  from  the  Father  in  his  name  should  be  performed  ; 
or  promising  to  give  his  disciples,  after  his  death,  a  spirit, 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  the  Father,  which  should  enable  them 
to  resist  all  adversaries  after  he  had  left  them  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  making  a  manifest  preparation  to  prepare  his 
disciples  for  his  death  on  the  ground  that  after  death  he 
would  still  be  present  with  them  and  still  their  guide  and 
helper.  Now  even  when  I  set  aside  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
and  eliminate  all  miraculous  narrative  from  the  first  three 
Gospels,  I  find  myself  in  the  presence  of  One  who,  I  am 
convinced,  both  said  these  things,  and  made  them  good 
in  deeds.  I  am  penetrated  with  the  conviction  that  He 
said  them  and  had  a  right  to  say  them  ;  and  that  this  is 
proved  by  literary  and  historical  evidence,  and  by  the 

K  2 


132  THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  [Letter  12 

history  of  the  Church,  and  by  my  own  experience.  The 
miracles  I  can  easily  disentangle  from  the  life  of  Christ ; 
but  His  divine  claims  to  be  our  Helper  and  Saviour  after 
death  and  to  all  eternity,  I  cannot.  Accepting  them,  I 
can  neither  deny  Him  worship  nor  myself  the  right  of 
access  to  Him  in  prayer. 

Christ's  whole  life  and  doctrine,  His  plan  (so  to  speak)  for 
the  establishment  of  spiritual  empire  over  the  hearts  of 
men,  appear  to  me  imbued  with  divinity  ;  but  if  I  were 
forced  to  choose  some  one  particular  discourse  or  incident 
in  His  life  as  a  reason  for  my  adoration  of  Him,  I  should 
not  choose  any  of  His  mighty  works  of  healing,  nor  any 
of  His  parables  or  discourses,  nor  even  His  death  upon 
the  cross  :  I  should  point  to  the  institution  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.  As  the  years  pass  over  my  head,  the  picture 
of  that  mysterious  evening  becomes  more  and  more 
powerful  and  vivid  with  me  and  more  and  more  inexpli- 
cable unless  Jesus  was  verily  the  Life  of  the  world.  It  is 
ten  times  more  vivid  and  more  powerful  now  than  it  was 
when  I  believed  in  a  miraculous  Jesus.  When  I  kneel 
down  at  the  altar-rails  there  rises  up  through  the  distance 
of  eighteen  centuries  that  strange  scene  in  the  guest- 
chamber  at  Jerusalem,  where  Jesus  portioned  out  His 
flesh  and  blood,  bequeathing  Himself  to  His  disciples 
for  ever.  Then  follows  the  thought  of  the  countless 
myriads  of  souls  who  have  derived  spiritual  strength  from 
this  rite  and  have  lived  again  in  Christ,  and  I  say  to 
myself,  "  Truly  God  was  in  the  self-doomed  man  who  thus 
gave  us  His  flesh  and  blood  for  mankind.  A  mere  man 
devise  so  strange  a  rite  !  So  (at  first)  repellently  strange  ! 
so  profoundly  simple  !  so  perfectly  and  spiritually  success- 
ful ! "  I  solemnly  protest  to  you  that  the  inexpressible 
depth  of  the  divine  intuition  which  found  utterance  in  the 
Lord's  Supper,  impresses  me  more  and  more — far  more 
than  all  the  miracles  put  together— as  a   proof  that  we 


Letter  \2\         THE  WORSHIP  OF  CHRIST  133 

have  in  Christ  a  Being  in  initial  and  fundamental  harmony 
with  the  very  source  of  our  spiritual  life  ;  and,  rationalist 
though  I  am,  I  find  myself,  nevertheless,  praying  natur- 
ally and  spontaneously  after  this  fashion:  "  Master,  my 
only  true  Lord  and  Master,  grant  that  I  may  feed  on  thy 
body  and  be  quickened  by  thy  blood,  and  live  in  thee 
a  new  and  spiritual  life  !  Thou  One  Forgiver  of  sins, 
thou  Bearer  of  all  the  burdens  of  mankind,  bear  Thou  the 
burden  that  I  cannot  bear,  and  blot  out  all  my  offences ; 
Thou  who  sktest  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high, 
lift  me  in  thyself  even  to  the  throne  of  heaven,  and 
present  me  to  the  Father  as  His  child  !  Thou  who  didst 
die  in  the  flesh  and  rise  again  in  the  spirit  never  to  die, 
rise  thou  in  my  heart  and  soul  ;  take  my  whole  being  into 
thyself  and  cause  me  there  to  die  unto  sin  and  to  live  with 
thee  unto  righteousness  !  Grant  me  eternal  life,  thou  Lord 
of  Life  !  Say  within  my  soul, '  Let  there  be  righteousness,' 
and  there  shall  be  righteousness  !  Create  me  anew,  O 
Lord,  thou  ever-living,  co-eternal  Word  of  the  Creator." 

You  may  object  that  many  of  these  prayers,  with  slightly 
different  wording,  might  equally  well  be  addressed  to  the 
Father  through  the  Son.  They  might,  and,  as  a  rule,  they 
probably  would  be  so  addressed.  But  in  moments  of  un- 
usually deep  emotion  prayers  of  this  kind  go  forth  I 
think,  more  naturally  to  the  Father  in  the  Son  than  to  the 
Father  through  the  Son  ;  and  surely  your  very  objection, 
and  my  answer  to  it,  shewing  that  prayers  may  be  indiffer- 
ently addressed  to  the  Father  or  to  the  Son,  constitute  a 
strong  argument  for  the  unity  (in  the  heart  of  the  person 
praying)  of  Son  and  Father.  And  if  I  can  pray  like  this,  do 
I  not  worship,  must  I  not  worship,  Christ  as  the  Creative 
Word,  the  Eternal  Son  of  God  ?  And  is  there  anything 
to  prevent  me  from  praying  like  this  in  the  fact  that  He  to 
whom  I  pray,  when  He  received  our  humanity,  received  it 
in  truth  and  honestv,  with  all  its  material  limitations? 


134 


WHAT  IS  NATURE? 


XIII 

My  dear , 

Desiring  to  approach  the  subject  of  miracles,  you 
ask  me  whether  I  do  not  accept  the  following  sentence  as 
a  statement  of  my  views  concerning  nature  :  "  The 
Universe  is  perennially  renewed  and  created  afresh  by 
an  active  energy  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  what  we  call 
'  laws  of  nature '  are  the  mode  in  which  our  limited  minds 
are  enabled  to  apprehend  the  working  of  Creative  Power." 
If  I  accept  it,  you  declare  you  cannot  understand  why  I 
should  stumble  at  miracles.  "  It  is  a  matter  of  every-day 
experience,"  you  say,  "  and  natural,  that  the  human  will 
should  suspend  the  laws  of  nature,  as  for  example  by 
arresting  the  motion  of  gravitation ;  and  consequently  it 
seems  unreasonable  for  you,  or  for  other  believers  in  a 
personal  God,  to  be  scandalized  if  He  also  now  and  then 
permits  Himself  the  same  liberty." 

I  accept  your  statement,  so  far  as  concerns  the  perennial 
energy  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  the  material  and  im- 
material Universe  ;  but  I  do  not  quite  agree  with  the 
thought,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  with  the  expression,  of 
the  last  part  of  your  sentence — "  the  mode  in  which  our 
limited  minds  are  enabled  to  apprehend  the  working  of 
Creative  Power."  I  should  prefer  to  call  the  Laws  of 
Nature  "a  revelation  of  Himself  by  God  to  men,  on  the 
recognition  of  which  our  very  existence  depends."  The 
Laws  of  Nature  are  indeed  nothing  but  ideas  of  our  own 
Imagination  ;  but  they  appear  to  me,  more  or  less,  true 


Letter  13]  WHAT  IS  NATURE?  '  135 

ideas,  through  which  God  has  revealed  Himself  to  us  as  a 
God  of  Law  and  Order.  I  believe  in  the  fixity  of  natural 
Law  as  much  ( I  think)  as  the  man  of  science  does  ;  I 
reverence  a  Law  of  Nature,  not  as  a  result  of  necessity, 
but  as  an  expression  of  God's  will.  But  your  own  remarks 
about  the  ordinary  "  suspension  of  the  law  of  nature  by 
the  human  will "  appear  to  me  to  imply  a  little  confusion 
of  thought  arising  from  a  confused  use  of  the  word 
"  nature  "  in  two  or  more  senses.  On  this  point  there- 
fore I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words. 

1.  Nature 

i.  Nature  sometimes  means  the  ordinary  course  of 
things  apart  from  us  and  from  our  interventions  as 
when  we  say  that  "  Nature  looks  gay  " — an  expression 
which  we  might  use  of  fields  and  even  of  a  not  too 
artificial  garden,  but  not  of  a  city  or  a  street. 

In  this  sense  it  may  be  occasionally  applied  to  the 
ordinary  course  of  things  in  our  own  bodily  frame,  so  far 
as  it  goes  on  without  our  deliberate  intervention ;  as  when 
a  physician  tells  a  fussy  patient  to  cease  from  medicining 
himself  and  to  "  let  Nature  take  its  course." 

ii.  Nature  sometimes  means  the  ordinary  course  of 
things  in  ourselves,  not  in  our  bodies  but  in  some  other 
part  of  us,  but  still  apart  froin  our  deliberate  intervention  ; 
as  when  we  say  that  "Nature  impels  us  to  avoid  pain,  to 
preserve  our  lives,  to  cherish  our  children,  to  love  and 
revere  our  parents,  and  to  seek  the  esteem  and  friendship 
of  our  neighbours." 

But  sometimes  in  human  beings  one  "  natural "  impulse 
is  opposed  by  another :  as  when  the  desire  to  preserve 
one's  life  is  opposed  by  the  desire  to  gain  the  esteem  of 
one's  neighbours.  When  these  two  conflict,  which  is  to 
be  called  the  more  "natural"? 


136  WHAT  IS  NATURE?  [Letter  iz 

The  answer  will  be  different,  according  as  we  use  the 
word  "natural"  in  the  sense  of  "  ordinary"  or  "orderly." 
One  class  of  natural  impulses,  which  may  be  called  selfish 
or  self-regarding,  is  perhaps  more  ordinarily  predomi- 
nant ;  another  class,  those  which  regard  the  good  of 
others,  contributes  more  to  the  progress  and  order  of 
society.  In  the  individual,  as  well  as  in  society,  the 
former  or  "  ordinary  "  impulses,  if  unchecked,  often  tend 
to  excess  of  passion,  and  what  we  call  mental  "  disorder"  ; 
the  latter  (which  are  seldom  in  excess)  tend  to  self-control 
and  a  well-ordered  mind.  In  the  former  sense,  it  is  more 
"  natural,"  because  more  "  ordinary/"'  to  laugh  when  we 
are  tickled,  or  to  seize  food  when  we  are  hungry,  than  to 
die  for  our  country  or  to  provide  food  for  our  children ; 
but,  in  the  latter  sense,  the  nobler  actions  are  more 
"  natural  "  because  more  in  accordance  with  order. 

What  do  we  mean  by  a  well-ordered  mind  ?  We  mean 
one  in  which  the  Will  does  not  at  once  yield  to  the 
impulses  from  the  things  which  seem  nearest  to  ourselves  ; 
in  which  the  Imagination  vividly  presents  to  us  the  wants 
of  our  neighbours  as  well  as  our  own  ;  in  which  the 
Reason  states  what  can  be  said  for  and  against  each 
proposal,  and  the  Conscience  finally  decides  the  course 
to  be  taken.  Here  then  we  see  an  entirely  new  notion  of 
Nature,  at  least  so  far  as  man  is  concerned  ;  a  course  or 
order  of  things  no  longer  apart  from  human  intervention, 
but  entirely  dependent  upon  the  supremacy  of  the  Will 
and  Conscience  aided  by  Reason  and  Imagination  :  and 
hence  we  are  led  to  a  double  definition  of  human  Nature 
as  follows  : — 

iii.  Human  Nature  means,  sometimes  the  ordinary, 
sometimes  the  orderly,  course  of  human  things. 

Even  as  to  non-human  Nature  we  sometimes  find  a 
popular  tendency  to  call,  or  think,  "unnatural,"  some 
phenomena   which    strike   us   as    being   contrary  to  the 


Letter  13]  WHAT  IS  NATURE  ?  137 

general  order  and  beneficence  of  things  :  and  hence  we 
are  less  fond  of  saying  that  Nature  prompts  the  cat  to 
torture  the  mouse  or  the  moth  to  fly  into  the  flame,  than 
that  she  implants  in  the  animal  race  the  parental  instinct 
to  protect  the  young.  I  confess  I  sympathize  with  this 
tendency,  and  with  all  those  who  in  their  hearts  look 
upon  death  and  pain  as  being  contrary  to  the  ideal  order 
of  things  and  ultimately  destined  to  be  destroyed.  But 
for  the  present,  apart  from  sentiment,  let  us  simply  note 
the  fact  that  in  our  popular  language  we  sometimes  say 
that  it  is  the  nature  of  a  clock  to  indicate  the  right  time, 
but  sometimes  that  it  is  its  nature  to  deviate  from  the 
right  time  :  whence  we  deduce  the  conclusion  that  : — 

iv.    The  Nature  of  a  thing  means  sometimes  its  object, 
sometimes  its  custom. 


Laws  of  Nature 

Many  of  those  unbroken  sequences  of  phenomena 
around  us,  which  have  been  most  frequently  observed, 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  the  Imagination  and  have 
received  an  imaginative  name.  When  we  find  Nature, 
upon  an  invariable  system,  dealing  out  rewards  for  one 
course  of  action  and  penalties  for  another,  there  is 
suggested  to  us  the  thought  of  a  great  Lawgiver  laying 
down  laws  and  affixing  rewards  for  obeying,  and  penalties 
for  disobeying.  Hence  the  sequences  of  natural  pheno- 
mena have  been  called  "  Laws  of  Nature." 

Every  action  of  every  moment  of  our  lives  is  performed 
for  the  most  part  in  the  instinctive  and  unconscious 
confidence  that  Nature  will  not  deceive  us  by  breaking 
her  Laws  :  and  hence  they  might,  from  another  point  of 
view,  be  called  "  Promises  of  Nature,"  or  "  Expressions 
of  the  Will  of  Nature  ;  but  "  Law  of  Nature  "  has  been 
selected — not  perhaps  altogether  happily— as  suggesting 


138  WHAT  IS  NATURE?  {Letter  13 

something  more  fixed  and  definite  than  even  the  Promises 
or  Will  of  the  Maker  of  the  world. 

Law  of  Nature  is  a  metapho?'ical  name  for  a  freque?itly 
observed  sequence  of  phenojnena  {apart  from  human 
Will),  implying,  to  some  minds,  regularity ;  to  others, 
absolute  invariability. 


Suspension  of  Laws  of  Nature 

Does  human  Will  ever  suspend  a  Law  of  Nature  ? 

I  am  standing,  we  will  suppose,  under  a  tree  in  autumn. 
If  a  leaf  flutters  down  and  rests  upon  my  head,  the  Law 
of  gravitation  is  no  more  suspended  by  my  Will,  than  if 
it  rests  upon  some  intercepting  bough.  The  result  of  the 
Law  is  modified  ;  downward  motion  is  replaced  by  down- 
ward pressure  :  but  the  Law  itself  is  not  suspended. 

But  if,  upon  the  command  of  a  man,  the  leaf  were 
arrested  in  mid  air  and  remained  immovable  for  an  hour 
together,  and  if  I  were  led  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was 
effected  by  no  force  which  I  could  conceive  as  being 
consistent  with  the  ordinary  course  of  Nature  and  with 
the  limitations  of  human  power,  then  I  should  be  obliged 
to  say  that  the  Law  of  gravitation,  in  this  particular 
instance,  did  not  work.  Using  a  metaphor,  I  might  say 
that  the  Law  was  "suspended,"  and  the  phenomenon 
itself  I  should  call  a  miracle. 

In  reality  the  true  explanation  might  be  quite  different. 
It  is  conceivable  that  an  extraordinary  man,  once  in  a 
thousand  or  once  in  ten  thousand  years,  might  be 
endowed  with  the  power  of  arresting  the  motion  of  a 
stone  in  the  air,  without  the  intervention  of  the  body  and 
by  the  mere  exercise  of  Will ;  and  this  might  be  done  by 
him  as  easily,  as  regularly,  and  (for  him)  as  naturally,  as 
we  ordinary  men  stop  a  stone  in  the  air  by  the  exercise 
of  Will  acting  upon  our  bodily  machinery.     In  that  case 


Letter  13]  WHAT  IS  NATURE  ?  139 

gravitation  would  still  act,  pressing  the  stone,  so  to 
speak,  upon  an  invisible  hand :  and  the  explanation 
would  be,  not  that  the  Law  was  suspended,  but  that  the 
results  of  the  Law  were  uniquely  modified  by  the  peculiar 
action  of  a  unique  human  nature,  in  the  same  way  in 
which  they  are  commonly  modified  by  the  regular  action 
of  an  ordinary  human  nature.  This,  I  say,  is  conceivable. 
Yet  if  we  find  (1)  in  past  history,  a  general  tendency  to 
believe  in  miracles  on  very  slight  evidence  ;  (2)  in  the 
present  time,  a  general  and,  as  many  think,  a  universal 
refutation  of  the  evidence  on  which  miracles  have  been 
accepted ;  (3)  an  increasing  power  of  explaining  many 
so-called  miracles  in  accordance  with  natural  Laws — it 
becomes  our  obvious  duty  to  regard  miraculous  narratives 
with  a  very  strong  suspicion  until  cogent  evidence  has 
been  produced  for  their  truth. 

The  Action  of  the  Will 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  the  action  of  the  Will 
upon  external  Nature  ;  but  now  what  as  to  the  action  of 
our  Will  upon  our  own  Nature,  upon  the  machinery  of 
our  own  body  ?  Is  that  to  be  called  a  Law  of  Nature  or 
a  suspension  of  a  Law  of  Nature  ? 

It  is  to  be  called  neither.  Our  definition  of  "  Law  of 
Nature  "  was  "  a  metaphorical  name  given  to  the  ordinary 
course  of  things  apart  from  the  interventio?i  of  human 
will:"  consequently  the  action  of  human  will  (about 
which  we  are  now  speaking)  is  expressly  excluded  from 
the  province  of  Nature,  in  this  sense,  and  can  neither  be 
called  "a  Law  of  Nature,"  nor  a  "  suspension  of  a  Law  of 
Nature."  The  action  of  the  Will  falls  under  the  head  of 
"  human  Nature  ;  "  and,  discussing  it  under  that  head,  we 
may  call  it  by  any  metaphor  we  please,  a  custom,  habit, 
law  of  human  Nature. 


140  WHAT  IS  NATURE?  [Letter  i$ 

This  distinction  between  the  name  given  to  the  course 
of  non-human  Nature  and  the  name  given  to  the  action 
of  the  human  Will  on  the  bodily  framework,  is  based 
on  our  distinction  between  the  regular  and  (if  I  may- 
use  the  word)  the  anticipable  sequences  of  the  former, 
as  contrasted  with  the  irregular  and  unanticipable  se- 
quences of  the  latter.  When  the  Will  is  undeveloped  or 
enfeebled  ;  when  the  human  being  is  a  baby,  or  one  of 
an  excited  and  undisciplined  crowd,  or  mad,  or  drunk,  or 
narcoticized,  or  mesmerized,  or  reduced  to  the  bestial 
level  by  some  overpowering  instinct ;  we  can  occasionally 
prophesy  his  actions  or  movements  with  something  of  the 
certainty  and  accuracy  with  which  we  predict  the  motions 
of  a  machine  :  but  we  cannot  thus  calculate  the  actions 
of  a  mature,  healthy,  and  reasonable  man.  Hence  it  has 
been  usual  to  contrast  with  the  "  Laws  of  Nature  "  the 
"  freedom  of  the  human  Will."  WTe  cannot  demonstrate 
the  freedom  of  the  Will  any  more  than  the  fixity  of  the 
Laws  of  Nature :  the  belief  in  both  is  suggested  by 
Imagination,  tested  and  approved  by  Experience  and 
Reason,  and  finally  retained  by  Faith.  Of  course,  when  I 
speak  thus,  you  will  not  suppose  that  I  assume  that  my 
mind,  or  being,  is  divided  into  distinct  parts  (as  the  body 
consists  of  distinct  limbs)  called  Will,  Reason,  &c.  :  you 
will  understand  that  I  merely  use  the  ordinary  brief  and 
convenient  phraseology  which  says  "  The  Will  does  so- 
and-so,"  meaning  "  I  do  so-and-so  with  a  certain  con- 
sciousness which  appears  to  me  to  result  from  a  faculty 
inherent  in  me  of  choosing  between  two  or  more  courses 
of  action,  which  faculty  I  call  Will."  With  this  precaution, 
I  assert  that  the  action  of  the  Will  is  natural  as  regards 
human  Nature,  but  outside  Nature  or  "  extra-natural "  as 
regards  non-human  Nature,  and  that  it  does  not  involve 
the  suspension  of  what  are  technically  called  "  the  Laws 
of  Nature." 


Later  13]  WHAT  IS  NATURE?  141 

It  is  thus  shewn  that  the  human  Will  acts  directly  on 
the  human  body  in  accordance  with  the  Laws  of  human 
Nature,  and  that  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  external 
world  except  indirectly,  through  the  body,  in  accordance 
with  the  Laws  of  Nature  (as  technically  defined).  There 
is  nothing  therefore  in  the  action  of  the  human  Will 
that  would  justify  the  a  priori  inference  that  the  divine 
Will  would,  by  any  direct  intervention,  disturb  or  suspend 
that  fixed  Order  in  the  external  world  which  constitutes 
a  large  part  of  the  revelation  of  God  to  mankind. 

If  indeed  we  are  to  draw  any  kind  of  parallel  between 
divine  and  human  action,  we  shall  have  to  ask  ourselves 
what  is  there  appertaining  to  the  divine  Spirit  which  can 
in  any  sense  be  said  to  correspond  to  its  "  Body"  ?  And 
I  suppose  we  shall  reply,  in  Pauline  language,  that  Man- 
kind, which  is  said  to  have  Christ  for  its  Head,  might  be 
mystically  and  spiritually  called  the  Body  of  the  divine 
Will  or  Holy  Spirit.  If  this  be  so,  proceeding  with  our 
parallel,  might  we  not  repeat,  word  for  word,  with  the 
needful  proportionate  changes,  the  language  of  the  last 
paragraph  :  "  The  divine  Will  or  Spirit  acts  directly  on 
the  divine  body  (that  is  on  mankind)  in  accordance  with 
the  Laws  of  Spiritual  Nature,  and  it  does  not  interfere 
with  the  external  world,  except  indirectly,  through  man- 
kind, in  accordance  with  the  Laws  of  Nature  (as  technically 
defined)  "  ?  I  do  not  say  that  this  analogy  is  logic-proof: 
for  what  can  be  called  a  "  body/5  or  what  "  external,''  in 
relation  to  the  all-pervading  God?  Nevertheless,  as  it 
falls  in  with  our  actual  experiences,  this  mystical  parallel 
seems  as  well  worth  recording  as  most  a  priori  notions  on 
this  subject,  though  we  take  it  as  no  more  than  an  illus- 
tration of  possibilities.  But,  if  we  are  to  confine  ourselves 
to  certainties,  the  one  thing  certain  is,  that  Nature,  in 
the  fullest  sense,  human  as  well  as  non-human,  emphati- 
cally discourages  us  from  expecting  "  miracles." 


142  THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 


XIV 

My  dear , 

Your  last  letter  now  comes  to  the  point  which  I 
have  been  long  anticipating,  or  rather  it  recurs  to  the 
point  from  which  our  correspondence  started — the  credi- 
bility of  the  miracles  attributed  to  Christ.  You  tell  me 
that  during  the  long  vacation  you  have  been  rapidly 
reviewing  my  letters  and  attempting  to  enter  into  my 
views.  There  is  much,  you  say,  that  is  new,  and  there  is 
something  that  improves  on  acquaintance,  in  this  form  of 
"  Christian  Positivism "  as  you  call  it ;  its  intellectual 
security  has  attractions  for  you,  and  it  seems  to  you  to 
satisfy  at  once  the  aspirations  of  those  who  are  drawn  to 
worship  humanity,  and  of  those  who  are  drawn  to  worship 
something  above  humanity.  ,  All  this  looks  very  well  on 
paper,  you  say  ;  but  when  you  take  up  the  Gospels,  it 
seems  to  fade  away  into  a  mere  student's  dream  :  and 
you  state  the  objection  thus  :  "  For  our  knowledge  of 
Christ,  we  depend  almost  entirely  upon  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  now  the  New  Testament  contains  accounts  of 
miracles  ;  these  miracles  we  are  unable  to  accept  as 
historical ;  consequently  the  New  Testament  must  be 
regarded  as  non-historical,  and  the  whole  story  of  Christ 
becomes  a  myth." 

In  return  for  this  argument  about  the  New  Testament 
let  me  supply  you  with  a  similarly  sceptical  one  about  the 
Old  Testament,  and  ask  you  whether  you  are  prepared 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     143 

consistently  to  adopt  it.  "  For  our  knowledge  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  we  depend  almost  entirely  upon  the  Old 
Testament  ;  now  the  Old  Testament  contains  accounts 
of  miracles  ;  these  miracles  we  are  unable  to  accept 
as  historical  ;  consequently  the  Old  Testament  must  be 
regarded  as  non-historical,  and  the  story  of  the  descend- 
ants of  Israel  becomes  a  myth." 

Now  are  you  really  satisfied  with  this  argument  ?  The 
so-called  Law  of  Moses,  the  wandering  in  the  Wilderness, 
the  conquest  of  Canaan,  the  lives  of  the  wonder-working 
Gideon  and  of  Barak,  the  wars  and  songs  of  David,  the 
denunciations,  warnings,  consolations,  sorrows,  visions,  of 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  the  other  prophets,  are 
they  indeed,  in  your  judgment,  converted  into  mere  myths 
by  the  admixture  of  the  miraculous  element  ?  Are  they 
even  made  so  far  mythical  as  not  to  reveal  the  story  of 
the  training  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  nations,  a 
nation  theologically  quite  singular  upon  earth  ?  I  contend 
on  the  contrary,  that  the  removal  of  the  miraculous 
element  results  in  a  two-fold  advantage,  on  the  one  hand 
placing  the  story  of  Israel  in  the  province  of  history,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  not  bringing  it  down  to  the  level  of 
the  common-place,  but  elevating  it  to  a  pinnacle  among 
the  histories  of  nations,  and  making  it  in  a  certain  sense 
more  wonderful  than  before.  If  Moses  was  a  plenipo- 
tentiary miracle-worker  from  God,  then  there  was  nothing 
unexpected  or  wonderful  in  the  spiritual  results  that  he 
achieved  ;  and  the  wonder  rather  is  that  he  achieved  so 
little.  Give  me  the  thunders  of  Sinai,  with  power  to  burn, 
blast,  and  plague  my  opponents  ;  add  to  these  the  power  of 
producing  without  labour  and  without  delay  miraculous 
supplies  of  manna,  quails,  and  water,  and  I  myself  would 
undertake  to  terrify  or  allure  any  nation  into  obeying  a  far 
less  noble  and  attractive  code  of  laws  than  was  set  forth 
in  the  name  of  Moses.     But  when  I  see  a  lawgiver  with 


144     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     [Letter  14 

no  such  powers,  doing  what  Moses  did,  and  shaping,  or 
preparing  the  way  for  shaping,  one  of  the  most  carnal 
and  unspiritual  of  races  into  a  nation  of  Priests  and 
Prophets  for  the  civilised  world,  then  I  am  ready  to  fall 
upon  my  face  and  to  take  my  shoes  from  off  my  feet, 
saying  from  the  depth  of  my  heart,  "  Truly  God  is  in  this 
place."  "  But,"  say  you,  "  the  so-called  Law  of  Moses  is 
no  more  due  to  Moses  than  trial  by  jury  is  due  to  Alfred." 
That  matters  not.  It  is  not  any  one  Israelite  ;  it  is  Israel 
as  a  whole,  Israel  and  its  lawgivers  and  poets  and  prophets 
collectively  ;  it  is  the  evolution  of  the  spiritual  from  the 
carnal  Israel  that  I  revere  ;  and  all  the  more,  if  that 
evolution  be  natural.  Regarded  as  miraculous,  the  history 
of  Israel  is  somewhat  of  a  failure  and  a  bathos  ;  but, 
regarded  as  non-miraculous,  it  becomes  a  most  miracu- 
lous triumph  of  divine  intention  and  persistence,  even 
though  the  walls  of  Jericho  succumbed  to  the  trumpets  of 
Israel  only  in  hyperbole,  and  although  the  sun  stood  still 
at  the  bidding  of  Joshua  only  in  the  impassioned  language 
of  an  Oriental  poet. 

I  am  quite  sure  you  must  feel  this  as  strongly  as  I  do  ; 
you  cannot  honestly  and  sincerely  put  aside  all  the  history 
of  Israel  as  a  myth  because  it  contains  a  non-historic 
element  of  miracles,  any  more  than  you  put  aside  the 
battles  of  Salamis  and  Regillus  because  they  too  have 
received  their  miraculous  adornment.  But  some  are 
probably  perplexed  and  scandalized  at  the  task  that  is 
apparently  set  before  them  of  disentangling  the  true  frorn 
the  false,  the  myth  from  the  non-myth  :  "  How  strange,' ' 
they  say,  "  that  the  story  of  the  training  of  the  Priests  of 
the  world,  that  story  which  should  have  been  a  light  to 
guide  our  feet,  has  been  suffered  to  shed  darkness  instead 
of  light  and  falsehood  instead  of  truth  !  Is  it  probable, 
is  it  even  decent  and  reverent,  to  suppose  that  God  should 
have  allowed  the  Book  of  Revelation  to  be  so  falsified 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     145 

that  the  simple  and  unlearned  cannot  depend  upon  it 
without  the  aid  of  scholars  and  specialists  ? J' 

My  reply  is  that,  as  long  as  men  reason  in  this  way, 
assuming  that  Revelation  ought  to  have  been  conveyed 
by  some  perfect  medium,  and  therefore  that  it  must  have 
been  conveyed  by  some  perfect  medium,  so  long  it  will 
be  as  impossible  to  refute  them  as  it  was  to  refute  the 
Aristotelian  astronomers  who  argued  that  "  The  planets 
ought  to  move  in  perfect  curves  ;  and  the  circle  is  a 
perfect  curve  ;  and  therefore  the  planets  must  move  in 
circles."  We  are  like  children  crying  for  the  moon  if  we 
demand  that  this  world,  or  that  anything  in  this  world, 
shall  be  arranged  as  if  the  world  were  the  best  of  all 
possible  worlds.  It  is  not  the  best  possible  world,  and 
we  know  it  is  not.  Some  things  attest  the  glory 
of  God  more  perfectly  than  others  ;  but  nothing  attests 
it  quite  perfectly.  You  might  as  well  hope  to  remove 
refraction  from  the  atmosphere,  as  to  remove  from  the 
human  mind  the  prejudices  which  compel  and  always 
have  compelled  mankind  to  exaggerate  and  misrepresent 
divine  truth  by  forcing  us  to  think  that  God  must  have 
acted  as  we  should  have  acted  had  we  been  in  His  place. 

If  you  and  I  were  omnipotent  and  had  to  re-make  the 
Universe,  I  suppose  there  is  no  question  but  we  should 
make  man  perfectly  good  (according  to  our  notions  of 
goodness)  and  that  we  should  force  him  to  remain  good. 
And  if  you  or  I  were  omnipotent  and  had  to  reveal  any- 
thing to  men,  we  should  write  it  large  and  clear  in  the  sky, 
or  in  the  heart,  legible  to  all  without  effort,  so  that  men 
should  be  forced  to  understand  it.  But  God  has  neither 
done  this  nor  anything  like  it.  Therefore,  since  in  other 
respects  He  has  departed  so  very  far  from  our  notions  of 
the  best  method,  we  cannot  be  surprised  if  He  has  not 
composed  the  Old  Testament  quite  in  the  manner  which 
would  commend  itself  to  us  as  the  best.     From  our  point 

L 


146     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     [Letter  14 

of  view  the  Bible  teems  with  obvious  imperfections.  In 
the  first  place  there  are  none  of  the  modern  arrangements 
for  securing  accuracy.  No  special  newspaper  reporters, 
not  even  contemporary  writers  of  memoirs  or  histories, 
have  handed  down  to  posterity  the  exact  words  and  deeds 
of  Moses,  David,  Isaiah,  and  the  great  heroes  and  prophets 
of  Israel.  Might  we  not  almost  say  that  there  have  been 
as  it  were  arrangements  for  securing  inaccuracy?  The 
authors  wrote,  in  many  cases,  long  after  the  events  they 
recorded,  under  conditions  which  rendered  accuracy 
of  detail  quite  impossible.  They  have  often  been  lengthy 
where  we  could  have  desired  brevity  (as  for  example  in 
the  enumerations  of  pedigrees  and  in  the  details  of  the 
furniture  and  ritual  of  the  Temple  or  the  Tabernacle)  and 
very  brief  where  we  should  have  prized  amplitude.  Writing 
as  Orientals  for  the  most  part  write  history,  without 
statistical  exactness,  they  have  sometimes  made  mistakes 
(sometimes  self-contradictory  mistakes)  in  numbers  and 
names,  which  it  is  now  impossible  to  rectify.  Nay,  we 
can  hardly  acquit  them  sometimes  of  moral  error  ;  they 
have  at  all  events  sometimes  appeared  to  praise,  or  at 
least  not  to  blame,  sometimes  even  to  impute  to  God,  acts 
that  would  seem  to  us — even  when  all  due  allowance  is 
made  for  difference  between  ancient  and  modem  standards 
of  morality — deserving  of  express  and  severe  censure. 

But  their  special  error  which  we  are  now  considering 
remains  yet  unmentioned.  You  know  that  nations,  like 
individuals,  in  their  infancy  have  very  vague  notions  of 
the  uniformity  of  Nature,  and  very  strong  notions  of  the 
personality  of  Nature  or  of  some  Beings  behind  Nature. 
Even  in  modern  times  Orientals  would  say  that  God  or 
Allah  did  this  or  that,  where  we  say  that  this  or  that 
"happened;"  and  I  remember  hearing  not  many  years 
ago  that  some  Jews  of  Palestine,  suffering  from  the  con- 
sequences of  extensive  conflagration,  wrote  to  England  for 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     147 

relief  in  a  letter  which  declared — in  perfect  good  faith,  and 
without  any  intention  to  imply  a  miracle — that  God  had 
"  sent  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  their  town."  An 
Eastern  traveller  of  modern  times  tells  an  amusing  story 
to  the  same  effect  how  a  camel-driver,  when  questioned  as 
to  the  cause  of  his  rheumatism,  could  not  be  induced  for 
a  long  time  to  make  any  other  answer  except  that  "  Allah 
had  caused  it  ;  "  and  even  when  the  traveller  had  elicited 
the  immediate  cause,  the  man  would  still  persist  that 
"  Allah  had  sent  the  rheumatism,  though  it  had  followed 
upon  drinking  a  great  quantity  of  camels'  milk  when  he 
was  in  a  violent  heat."  You  should  therefore  accustom 
yourself,  if  you  want  to  understand  the  Bible,  to  look  at 
Western  narrative  from  an  Oriental  point  of  view.  Take 
for  example  the  interesting  account  given  by  the  African 
traveller  Mungo  Park  of  the  manner  in  which  a  trifling 
incident  saved  his  life  in  the  desert.  Alone  and  desperate, 
faint  and  famished,  he  had  thrown  himself  down  to  die, 
when  he  suddenly  caught  sight  of  a  small  but  exquisitely 
shaped  plant  of  great  rarity  and  interest  :  "  And  can  God 
have  taken  so  much  thought  and  care  for  the  creation  of 
this  little  plant,"  he  cried,  "  and  have  no  thought  or  care 
for  me  ? "  In  the  strength  of  this  suggestion  he  started  up, 
pressed  on  his  way,  and  reached  safety.  Now  compare 
this  striking  little  story  with  the  similar  incident  of  the 
gourd,  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  and  imagine  how  a 
prophet  of  Israel  could  have  described  the  message  of 
salvation.  He  would  have  told  us  (as  the  prophet  Jonah 
tells  us)  how  the  Lord  God  in  the  same  day  caused  a 
plant  to  grow  up  before  the  face  of  the  man,  and  how  the 
Lord  God  said  unto  the  man  "  Hath  the  Lord  thy  God 
taken  thought  for  this  plant,  and  shall  He  take  no  thought 
for  thee  ?  Arise,  go  on  thy  way  "  -  giving,  as  from  God, 
the  actual  words  of  the  thought  which  the  Western 
traveller  describes  as  suggesting  itself  or  occurring  to  his 

L  2 


148     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     [Letter  14 

mind.  You  must  surely  see  how  naturally  this  conversion 
of  the  natural  into  the  seemingly  miraculous  would  have 
been  effected  by  a  penman  of  Israel,  without  the  least 
intention  to  imply  a  real  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
Keeping  yourself  still  in  the  position  of  an  Oriental 
historian,  consider  what  you  would  be  called  on  to  de- 
scribe, in  setting  down  the  story  of  Israel.  You  would  find, 
as  your  materials,  various  traditions,  mostly  oral,  mostly 
perhaps  poetic,  describing  a  great  deliverance  wrought  in 
every  particular  by  the  hand  of  Jehovah  Himself :  you 
would  find  the  nation  around  you,  and  yourself  among  the 
rest,  believing  that  Jehovah  Himself  had  drowned  the 
Egyptians  in  the  Red  Sea,  that  His  terrible  voice  had  given 
the  Law  from  Sinai,  that  He  had  been  to  wandering  Israel 
a  cloud  in  the  noontide  to  protect  them  from  the  sun,  and 
a  light  in  the  darkness  to  give  them  guidance,  that  He  had 
supplied  them  with  food  from  Heaven  and  spread  a  table 
for  them  in  the  wilderness,  that  He  had  Himself  given 
them  water  from  Himself  (the  Rock  of  Israel  !)  to  quench 
their  thirst.  If  the  Jordan's  fords,  unusually  shallow,  had 
allowed  the  whole  nation  to  pass  across,  as  upon  dry  land, 
you  would  be  taught  as  a  child  to  hear  and  sing,  in  hymns 
that  reiterated  the  national  deliverance,  that  the  Lord 
Himself  had  done  this  :  "  The  waters  saw  thee,  O  Lord, 
the  waters  saw  thee,  and  were  afraid."  If,  in  the  general 
terror  of  the  Canaanites,  a  strong  city  suffered  itself  to  be 
taken  on  the  mere  onset  and  war  cry  of  the  invaders  as 
easily  as  though  it  had  been  an  unwalled  hamlet,  the 
traditions  would  tell  how  the  walls  fell  flat  at  the  sound 
of  the  trumpets  of  Joshua  ;  if  some  sudden  storm,  accom- 
panied with  hail  and  immediately  followed  by  an  inunda- 
tion of  swollen  streams,  threw  the  chariots  and  horses  of 
the  enemy  into  confusion  and  ensured  their  speedy  rout ;  or 
if,  on  another  occasion,  the  sudden  gloom  of  a  storm  had 
been  succeeded  by  a  long  evening  of  peculiar  brightness 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     149 

and  clearness  facilitating  the  pursuit  and  destruction  of 
the  foe,  then  you  would  hear  that  the  "  stars  in  their 
courses "  fought  against  Sisera,  or  that  in  the  day  of 
Beth-horon  the  Lord  Himself  sent  down  hailstones  upon 
the  enemy  and  stopped  the  sun  at  the  prayer  of  Joshua  : — 

"The  sun  and  moon  stood  still  in  their  habitation  ; 
At  the  light  of  thine  arrows  as  they  went, 
At  the  shining  of  thy  glittering  spear."1 

All  these  materials,  expressed  in  terse  poetic  phrase, 
you,  as  a  historian,  would  have  to  amplify  into  prose.  Is 
it  not  easy  to  see  how,  in  the  process,  without  any  fraud  or 
conscious  exaggeration  on  your  part,  you  would  trans- 
mute the  natural  into  the  miraculous  ? 

To  go  through  the  whole  of  the  miracles  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  to  attempt  to  shew  how  in  almost  every 
case  the  miraculous  part  of  the  story  may  have  crept  in 
without  intention  to  deceive,  would  be  a  task  far  above 
my  powers  ;  and  it  would  require  a  book  not  a  letter.  If 
you  were  to  study  with  care  the  articles  in  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica  on  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  they 
would  give  you  a  good  deal  of  light  on  this  subject.  But 
the  problem  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  causes  that 
originated  the  miraculous  element  are  not  always  the 
same.  For  example  the  seven  miracles  of  Elijah  and  the 
fourteen  miracles  of  Elisha  (the  latter  number  being 
exactly  the  double  of  the  former  in  order  to  fulfil  the 
prayer  of  Elisha  for  a  "  twofold  "  portion  of  the  spirit  of 
his  master)  cannot  be  explained  in  the  same  way  as  the 
miracles  of  the  Wanderings  or  as  those  in  the  life  of 
Samson.  The  eminent  Hebraist  to  whom  we  are  in- 
debted for  the  Articles  above-mentioned  would  confer  on 
all  students  of  the  Bible  a  very  great  benefit,  if  he  would 
give  us  a  separate  treatise  on  the  Old  Testament  miracles. 
Meantime  I  must  content  myself  with  shewing  how  some 

1  Habakkuk  iii.  11 


150     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     [Letter  14 

miracles,  of  what  I  may  call  a  "  grotesque  "  kind,  may  be 
explained  as  the  mere  result  of  misunderstood  names. 
You  must  be  familiar  with  this  kind  of  explanation,  I  think, 
in  ancient  history,  and  even  in  modern  English  history, 
although  you  have  never  thought  of  applying  it  to  the 
Bible.  Perhaps  you  have  read  in  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor's 
Words  and  Places  how  the  sexton  in  Leighton  Buzzard 
used  to  show  the  eagle  of  the  lectern  as  the  identical 
buzzard  from  which  the  place  derived  its  name — little 
guessing  that  "  Buzzard"  is  a  mere  corruption  of  "  Beau- 
desert  ;  "  and  the  porter  at  Warwick  Castle,  when  he  shows 
you  the  bones  of  the  "  dun  cow  "  slain  by  Guy  of  Warwick, 
hands  down  a  similar  erroneous  tradition  probably  derived 
from  a  misunderstanding  of  "  dun." l  A  far  more  famous 
instance  connects  itself  with  the  Phoenician  name  of 
"  Bosra,"  belonging  to  the  citadel  of  Carthage.  This 
name  meant,  in  the  Phoenician  language,  "  citadel ;"  but 
the  Greeks  confused  it  with  the  Greek  word  "  Bursa/'  a 
"  hide  ; "  and  then  they  proceeded  to  invent  a  story  to  ex- 
plain the  name.  Queen  Dido,  they  said,  had  bought  for 
a  small  price  as  much  ground  as  she  could  encompass 
with  a  hide  ;  she  had  cut  the  hide  into  thin  thongs  and 
thereby  purchased  the  site  of  a  city  for  a  trifle  :  hence  the 
city  received  the  name  of  "  Hide."  Thus  subtilized  the 
Greeks  ;  but  it  may  interest  you  to  know  that  our  own 
ancestors  consciously  or  unconsciously  followed  in  their 
footsteps.  There  is  near  Sittingbourne  a  castle  called  Tong 
or  Thong  Castle,  situated  on  a  "  tongue  "  of  land  (Norse, 
tuiigd)  which  has  given  it  its  name.  But  tradition  has 
invented  or  imitated  the  old  Greek  story,  and  has  de- 
clared that  the  castle  was  so-called  because  the  site  was 
bought  like   Dido's,  a   trifling  price   being  given  for  so 

1  "  The  legend  of  the  victory  gained  by  Guy  of  Warwick  over  the  dun  cow 
most  probably  originated  in  a  misunderstood  tradition  of  his  conquest  of  the 
Dena  gaiior  Danish  settlement  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Warwick." — Taylor's 
Words  and  Places,  p.  269. 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     151 

much  land  as  could  be  included  in  the  "thong"  made 
from  a  bull's  hide. 

But  now  to  come  to  the  particular  instance  which  is 
the  only  one  I  shall  give  from  the  Old  Testament.     You 
must   recollect,  and    I    think    you  ought   to    have   been 
perplexed  by,  the  astounding  incident  in  the  life  of  Samson, 
connected  with  the  "  ass' s  jawbone."     The  hero  is  said 
first  to  have  slain  some  hundreds  of  men  with  the  jaw- 
bone of  an  ass,  and  then  to  have  thrown  away  the  jaw- 
bone in  the  anguish  of  a  parching  thirst.     Upon  this,  the 
Lord  is  said,  (in  the  Old  Version  of  the  Bible)  to  have 
opened  a  fountain  of  water  in  the  hollow  of  the  jawbone 
in  answer  to  his  cry :  and  the  fountain  was  henceforth 
named  En-hakkore,  *.*.  the  "  fountain  of  him  that  calleth,"  , 
because  Samson  "called    upon   the    Lord."      Moreover, 
when  he  cast  away  the  jawbone,  he  is  said  to  have  called 
the  place  Ramath-lehi ;  which  the  margin  (not  of  the  New 
Version  but  of  the  Old)  interprets,  "  the  lifting  up  of  the 
jawbone  "  or  "  the  casting  away  of  the  jawbone."    Without 
pausing    to    dwell    on  the  extreme  improbability  of  the 
details    of  the  story,  I  will    merely  state    the    probable 
explanation.      It  is  probable  that  the  valley  containing 
the  "  hollow  "  in  which  the  fountain  lay,  was  called,  from 
the   configuration   of    the   place,   "the   Ass's   Jawbone," 
before   the  occurrence  of  any  exploit  of  Samson  in  it. 
Indeed  we  find  it  actually  called  "  Lehi,"  or  "Jawbone," 
in  the  narrative   now  under  discussion,  just   before   the 
supposed   incident   of  the  jawbone   took    place :    "  The 
Philistines  went  up,  and  pitched  in  Judah,  and    spread 
themselves    in  Lehi  (Jawbone)?    Judges  xv.    9.      This 
latter  fact    indeed    is   not    conclusive    (as   the   narrator, 
living    long    after    the    event,    might    possibly   use    the 
name  of  the  place  handed  down  to  him,  even  in  writing 
of  a  time  when  he  believed  the  name  to  have  been  not 
yet  given)  :  but  the  probability  of  a  natural  explanation  of 


152     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     [Letter  14 

the  origin  of  the  name  receives  strong  confirmation  from 
a  passage  in  Strabo  (303)  who  actually  mentions  some 
other  place  (I  think  in  Peloponnesus)  called  the  "  Ass's 
Jawbone."  I  need  not  say  that  Strabo  narrates  no  such 
Samsonian  incident  to  explain  the  name,  and  that  it  was 
probably  derived  (like  Dog's  Head,  Hog's  Back  and 
many  other  such  names)  from  some  similarity  between 
the  shape  of  an  ass's  jawbone  and  the  shape  of  the  valley. 
Moreover,  the  word  translated  "  hollow,"  though  it  might 
represent  the  cavity  in  an  ass's  jawbone,  might  also  repre- 
sent the  hollow  in  a  valley,  as  in  Zephaniah  (i.  11)  "  Howl, 
ye  inhabitants  of  the  hollow?  Again,  the  name  Ramath- 
lehi  cannot  mean  "  casting  away  of  the  jawbone  ;  "  it 
means  "  lifting  up/'  or  "  hill?  of  Lehi  :  and  accordingly 
the  Revised  Version  translates,  "that  place  was  called 
Ramath-lehi  ; "  and  the  margin  interprets  the  name  thus, 
"  The  hill  of  the  jawbone."  I  should  add  also  that  the 
Revisers — instead  of  the  Old  Version,  "  clave  an  hollow 
place  that  was  in  the  jaw'' — give  us  now,  "clave  the 
hollow  place  that  is  in  Lehi?  You  must  see  now  surely 
how  on  every  side  the  old  miraculous  interpretation 
breaks  down  and  makes  way  for  a  natural  and  non- 
miraculous  explanation  of  the  legend.  But  we  have  still 
to  explain  the  name  of  the  fountain,  said  to  have  been 
given  from  the  "  calling"  of  Samson.  This  is  easily  done. 
It  appears  that  the  phrase  "him  that  calleth,"  or  "the 
Caller/'  is  a  Hebrew  name  for  the  Partridge,  so  named 
from  its  "  call,"  or  cry.  The  "  Fountain  of  the  Caller," 
therefore,  in  the  "  hollow  place"  of  the  "  Ass's  Jawbone," 
was  simply,  as  we  might  say,  Partridge  Well  in  Jawbone 
Valley,  which  lay  below  Jawbone  Hill. 

But  now,  many  years  after  the  champion  of  Israel  had 
passed  away,  comes  the  legendary  poet  or  historian,  who 
has  to  tell  of  some  great  exploit  of  deliverance  wrought 
by  the  hero  Samson  in  this  Valley  of  the  Jawbone  of  the 


Letter  i&    MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     153 

Ass  by  the  side  of  the  Fountain  of  the  Caller.  Straight- 
way, every  local  name  must  be  connected  with  the 
incident  that  fills  his  mind  and  the  minds  of  all  his 
countrymen  who  live  in  the  neighbourhood.  And  so 
"  Jawbone  Valley  "  became  so  called  because  it  was  there 
that  Samson  smote  the  Philistines  with  "  the  jawbone 
of  an  ass  ; "  and  "  Jawbone  heights "  are  so-called 
because  on  this  spot  Samson  " lifted  up"  the  jawbone 
against  his  foes,  or  "threw  it  away"  after  he  had  de- 
stroyed them  ;  and  "the  Well  of  the  Caller"  derives  not 
only  its  name  but  even  its  miraculous  existence  from 
"the  calling  of  Samson  upon  Jehovah." 

I  think  you  will  now  perceive  the  kind  of  reasoning 
which  has  compelled  me  to  give  up  the  miracles  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  not  in  any  way  because  I  have  an 
a  priori  prejudice  against  miracles  :  on  the  contrary, 
I  started  with  an  a  priori  prejudice  for  miracles  in  the 
Bible,  though  against  miracles  in  general.  It  is  not  simply 
because  there  is  not  sufficient  evidence  for  them  ;  it  is 
in  great  measure  because  there  is  evidence  against  them. 
For,  when  you  can  shew  how  a  supposed  miracle  may 
naturally  have  occurred,  and  how  the  miraculous  account 
may  naturally  and  easily  have  sprung  up,  I  think  that 
amounts  to  evidence  against  the  miracle.  And  of  course 
when  you  find  yourself  compelled  to  explain  in  this  way 
a  large  number  of  miracles  in  the  Old  Testament,  it 
becomes  far  more  probable  than  before  that  the  rest  are 
susceptible  of  some  natural  explanation.  I  do  not  pretend 
to  have  investigated  in  detail  every  miraculous  narrative 
in  the  Old  Testament.  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  at  the 
bottom  of  the  miraculous,  there  may  have  been  in  many 
cases  something  very  wonderful.  Being  for  example 
personally  very  much  inclined  to  the  mysterious,  I  would 
not  deny  that  in  the  Hebrew  race,  as  in  some  others, 
there  may  have  been  some  strange  power,  natural  but  at 


154    MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT    {Letter  14 

present  inexplicable,  of  "  second  sight ; "  but,  on  the 
whole,  looking  at  the  evidence  for  and  against  the  miracles 
of  the  Old  Testament,  I  have  now  no  hesitation  in  rejecting 
them  as  miracles,  however  much  I  may  admire  the  spirit 
that  suggested  the  narratives,  as  exhibiting  a  profound 
and  spiritual  sense  of  the  sympathy  of  God  with  men. 

But  we  may  perhaps  be  called  upon  to  believe  in  the 
miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  on  the  authority,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  Such  at 
least  I  take  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  following  extract 
from  an  author  who  has  done  so  much  good  educational 
as  well  as  episcopal  work,  and  has  manifested  such  an 
openness  to  new  truth,  that  I  differ  from  him  with  diffi- 
dence where  I  may  possibly  have  misunderstood  his 
meaning,  and  with  regret  where  I  am  confident  that  I 
have  understood  him  correctly.  The  passage  is  from 
Bishop  Temple's  Bampton  Lectures,1  and  I  will  give  it 
at  full  length,  partly  because  I  may  have  to  refer  to  it 
again,  partly  because  I  am  afraid  of  misinterpreting  it 
if  I  separate  one  or  two  sentences  from  the  context : 

' '  We  have  to  ask  what  evidence  can  be  given  that  any  such  miracles  as  are 
recorded  in  the  Bible  have  ever  been  worked?  It  is  plain  at  once  that  the 
answer  must  be  given  by  the  New  Testament.  No  such  >2  evidence  can  now 
be  produced  on  behalf  of  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  times  are 
remote  :  the  date  and  authorship  of  the  Books  not  established  with  certainty  ; 
the  mixture  of  poetry  with  history,  no  longer  capable  of  any  sure  separation 
into  its  parts ;  and,  if  the  New  Testament  did  not  exist,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  show  such  a  distinct  preponderance  of  probability  as  could  justify 
us  in  calling  many  [  ?  any]  to  accept  the  miraculous  parts  of  the  narrative  as 
historically  true." 

If  I  understand  this  argument,  I  fear  I  must  dissent 
from  it.  But  let  us  try  at  least  to  understand  it.  Dr. 
Temple  admits  (what  I  should  not  be  disposed  to  have 
admitted  without  a  good  deal  of  qualification)  that  "the 
mixture  of  poetry  with  history  "  (and  the  context  makes  it 
clear  that  he  is  referring  to  the  miraculous  accounts  of 

1  Page  206. 

2  The  italics  are  in  the  text.     In  the  next  sentence,  the  italics  are  mine. 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     155 

the  Old  Testament)  is  "  no  longer  capable  of  any  sure 
separation  into  its  parts."  This  is  a  very  important 
admission  indeed:  A  plain  Englishman  may  miss,  at 
first  sight,  the  full  importance  of  it.  He  may  be  dis- 
posed to  say,  "What  does  this  matter  to  me?  What 
do  I  care  whether  a  miracle  is  told  in  poetry  or  in  prose, 
provided  only  it  is  true?"  But  by  "poetry"  Dr.  Temple 
does  not  mean  "  verse  ;  "  he  means  hyperbole,  poetic 
figures  of  speech  and  metaphors  ;  in  plain  English,  he 
means  language  that  is  literally  and  historically  untrue. 
Consequently  the  admission  amounts  to  this,  that  it  is  now 
no  longer  possible  in  the  miraculous  narratives  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  separate  what  is  historically  true  from  what 
is  historically  untrue.  If  this  be  so,  I  cannot  understand 
how  the  question  is  substantially  affected  by  the  New 
Testament.  Let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that,  many 
centuries  after  the  times  of  Moses  and  Samson,  real 
miracles  were  wrought  by  Christ  and  the  apostles  ;  suppose 
even,  in  addition,  that  the  reality  of  the  miracles  wrought 
by  Christ  and  his  followers  could  constitute  any  evidence 
for  the  Mosaic  Miracles  or  could  refute  the  evidence 
against  such  stories  as  that  of  the  Ass1  s  jawbone  ;  yet 
even  then,  what  is  the  use  of  knowing  that  there  may  be 
a  miracle  somewhere  concealed  in  an  Old  Testament 
narrative  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  "  make  any  sure 
separation"  of  the  historically  true  from  the  historically 
untrue  ? 

But  for  my  part  I  am  quite  unable  to  adopt  either  of 
these  suppositions.  I  cannot  see  how  "a  distinct  pre- 
ponderance of  probability"  for  the  Samsonian  myth  or 
the  story  of  the  stopping  of  the  sun  could  be  secured  by 
the  fact  that  miracles  were  really,  long  afterwards,  per- 
formed by  Christ.  All  that  could  fairly  be  said,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  would  be  this,  that  since  miracles  were 
actually  wrought  by  the  Redeemer  of  the  race,  who  was 


156     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     {Letter  14 

Himself  a  child  of  Israel,  it  is  not  so  improbable  as  be- 
fore that  miracles  might  have  been  also  wrought  by  other 
previous  deliverers  of  Israel.  But  this  could  not  go  far, 
and  certainly  cannot  constitute  "  a  distinct  preponder- 
ance of  probability,"  if  we  find  positive  evidence  for  a 
miracle  almost  wanting,  and  negative  evidence  against  it 
very  strong.1 

So  far  as  Dr.  Temple's  argument  has  weight,  so  far  it 
appears  to  me  to  be  capable  of  being  used  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  that  which  he  intended.  For  if  there  is  any 
connection  between  the  miracles  of  the  Old  and  of  the 
New  Testament,  so  that  the  probability  of  the  latter  may 
be  fairly  said— I  will  not  say  to  constitute  "  a  distinct 
preponderance  of  probability,"  but  to  contribute  slightly 
to  the  probability  of  the  former,  then  surely  we  must 
also  admit  that  the  demonstrated  improbability  of  the 
former  must  contribute  slightly  to  the  a  priori  improba- 
bility which  we  ought  to  attach  to  the  latter.  If  the 
Bible  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  whole,  and  Bible  miracles  as 
a  whole,  then  the  fact  that  the  Divine  Author  of  the  Bible 
allowed  revelation  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  Book  to  be 
conveyed  through  an  imperfect  and  non-historical  medium 
will  constitute  a  reasonable  probability  that  He  may  also 
have  conveyed  His  later  revelations  through  the  same 
means.  In  other  words,  the  acknowledged  presence  of 
the  law  of  "Truth  through  Illusion"  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment should  prepare  us  not  to  be  disappointed  if  we  find 

1  A  more  plausible  argument  might  be  derived  from  any  expressions  of 
Jesus  which  might  appear  to  imply  a  belief  in  the  historical  nature  i  f  the 
Old  Testament  miracles.  This  argument  appeals  strongly  to  our  sense  of 
reverence.  We  do  not  like  to  think  that  Jesus  was  mistaken  even  in  a  purely 
intellectual  matter.  Yet  do  we  really  suppose  that  Jesus,  in  His  humanity, 
was  exempt  from  the  popular  intellectual  and  scientific  errors  of  contemporary 
humanity?  For  example,  do  we  really  suppose  that  Jesus  was  exempt  from 
the  popular  belief  that  the  sun  moves?  For  those  who  realize  His  humanity 
it  is  hard  to  think  that  He  was  intended  to  be  so  far  separated  from  the  men 
and  women  around  Him  ;  and,  if  He  was  not  so  separated,  I  find  little  more 
difficulty  in  supposing  that  He  would  have  had  the  same  belief  as  was  held  by 
all  His  countrymen  concerning  the  historical  character  of  the  Old  Testament. 


Letter  14]     MIRACLES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT    157 

the  same  law  traceable  in  the  New  Testament :  and  the 
collapse  of  miracles  in  the  former  should  prepare  us  for  a 
collapse  of  miracles  in  the  latter. 

Do  not  however  suppose  for  a  moment  that  a  collapse 
of  miracles  implies  a  collapse  of  the  Bible,  and  do  not  be 
disheartened  by  such  expressions  as  that  "the  mixture  of 
poetry  with  history  is  no  longer  capable  of  any  sure 
separation  into  its  parts."  If  that  expression  refers 
merely  to  some  of  the  legends  of  the  times  of  the  Patri- 
archs, or  to  a  few  isolated  passages  elsewhere,  it  may  be 
accepted  without  fear  ;  but  it  cannot  apply  to  the  great 
bulk  of  theiiistory  of  the  Chosen  People.  Here  you  will 
find  very  little  difficulty  in  rejecting  the  obviously  non- 
historical  and  miraculous  element ;  and  you  will  lose 
nothing  by  the  rejection.  Read  through  Stanley's  Lectures 
011  the  Jewish  Church  and  ask  yourself  whether  you  have 
missed  anything  from  the  campaigns  of  Joshua  and  the 
exploits  of  Gideon  and  Samson  because  the  miracles 
have  vanished  from  his  pages.  Where  miraculous 
narratives  are  manifestly  not  deliberate  fabrications,  but 
(as  here)  late  prosaic  interpretations  of  early  poetic 
traditions,  they  very  often  afford  trustworthy  evidence  of 
ancient  historical  events  which  imprinted  themselves  upon 
the  hearts  of  a  simple  people.  Certainly  I  can  say  for 
myself  that  I  never  realized  Israel  as  a  nation  and  had  not 
half  my  present  appreciation  of  the  wisdom  and  wonder 
of  the  deliverance  and  training  of  Israel  by  Jehovah  till 
I  had  learned  to  interpret  the  miracles  as  being  nothing 
more  than  man's  inadequate  attempt  to  set  forth  invisible 
shape  the  unique  redemption  of  the  Chosen  People. 
Spiritually  as  well  as  intellectually,  my  enjoyment  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  been  doubled  ever  since  I  have  been 
able,  however  imperfectly,  to  separate  the  historical  ele- 
ment in  it  from  the  non-historical,  and  to  interpret  the 
prose  as  prose  and  the  poetry  as  poetry. 


158    THE  MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


XV 

My  dear  , 

You  demur  to  the  parallel  that  I  draw  between  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament :  "  The  Battle  of 
Beth-horon  can  be  disentangled  from  the  miracle  of  the 
stopping  of  the  sun,  just  as  the  battles  of  Salamis  and 
Regillus  can  be  disentangled  from  the  visions  which  are 
said  to  have  accompanied  them  :  and  so  of  other  Old 
Testament  narratives.  But  is  it  possible,"  you  ask,  "that 
the  life  of  Christ  can  be  disentangled  from  miracles  ?  Do 
not  His  own  words  and  doctrine  imply  a  continual  as- 
sumption that  He  had  power  to  do  '  mighty  works '  superior 
to  those  of  ordinary  men  ? " 

You  could  not  have  put  your  question  more  happily  : 
for  you  unconsciously  illustrate  the  almost  universal  con- 
fusion— common  to  a  great  number  of  theologians  and 
agnostics  as  well  as  to  the  ordinary  Bible  reader — between 
"  miracles  "  and  "  mighty  works."  You  are  really  asking 
not  one  but  two  questions.  Your  first  question  asks  about 
"  miracles  ;  "  by  which  you  mean  some  kind  of  suspen- 
sion of  a  law  of  nature,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  some  act 
not  conceived  as  explicable  in  accordance  with  any 
natural  law  by  the  person  who  is  attempting  explana- 
tion. Your  second  question  asks  about  "mighty  works," 
a  phrase  of  constant  occurrence  in  the  New  Testament, 
by  which  phrase  we  may  understand  works  superior 
to  the  works  of  ordinary  persons,  but  not  necessarily 
suspensions    of  the    laws    of   nature.      Works    may   be 


Letter  l$\   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    159 

"mighty"  and  yet  quite   explicable  in  accordance   with 
natural  law. 

You  seem  to  expect  a  No  to  your  first  question  and  a 
Yes  to  your  second.  I  answer  Yes  to  both.  (1)  The  life 
of  Christ  can  be  disentangled  from  "  miracles."  (2)  Christ 
always  assumed  that  He  could  do  "  mighty  works,"  and 
from  them  His  life  cannot  be  separated. 

It  is  a  law  of  human  nature  that  the  mind  influences  the 
body.  By  acting  on  the  imagination  and  the  emotions  men 
have  in  all  ages  consciously  or  unconsciously  effected 
instantaneous  cures  in  accordance  with  natural  laws. 
There  has  been  much  quackery  and  deception  mixed  up 
with  cures  of  this  kind  ;  but  no  physician,  and  no  man  of 
any  general  information,  would  doubt  that  such  cures 
have  been  and  still  are  performed.  The  Jansenists, 
subjected  to  the  test  of  hostile  observation,  had  some 
undeniable  successes  of  this  nature.  Every  one  has 
heard  of  the  so-called  "  miracles "  of  Lourdes  ;  and  no 
unprejudiced  person  would  deny  that  amid  possible  ex- 
aggerations and  (I  greatly  fear)  some  frauds,  they  have 
contained  an  element  of  reality.  "Faith-healing"  is 
going  on  in  England  during  this  very  year  ;  and  in  the 
very  place  where  I  am  now  writing  I  heard  a  captain  of 
the  Salvation  Army  just  now  give  out  a  notice  that, 
besides  a  "  free  and  easy  meeting,"  and  a  "  holiness  meet- 
ing," and  sundry  other  meetings,  there  is  to  be  a  meeting 
on  one  evening  this  week  for  the  purpose  of  "  casting  out 
devils."  If  I  go  there,  I  shall  probably  see  attempts, 
with  partial  success,  to  excite  a  paralytic  to  motion,  or  to 
arouse  some  one  from  a  dull  stupor  approximating  to 
insanity.  These  attempts,  even  though  immensely  as- 
sisted by  the  intense  interest  and  sympathetic  demon- 
strations of  the  spectators,  will  probably  produce  only  a 
temporary  effect  ;  and  when  it  passes  away  the  patient 
will  very  likely  be  worse  than  before.     But  the  law  of 


160    MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   [Letter  15 

nature  is  the  same  with  all  ;  in  modern  times  with  the 
Jansenists,  the  miracle-workers  of  Lourdes,  the  "  faith- 
healers,"  and  the  Salvation  Army,  and  in  ancient  times 
with  the  priests  of  ^Esculapius.  Cures  can  be  effected 
by  a  strong  emotional  shock,  sometimes  of  a  gross  kind 
such  as  mere  terror  or  violent  excitement,  sometimes  of  a 
much  purer  kind,  an  ecstatic  hope  and  trust.  A  marked 
distinction  must  of  course  be  made  between  those  cures 
which  can,  and  those  which  cannot,  be  effected  by  appeal 
to  the  emotions.  Paralysis  (called  in  the  New  Testament 
"  palsy  "),  mental  disease  (often  called  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment "  possession  "),  and  various  kinds  of  nervous  dis- 
order, are  all  susceptible  of  emotional  cure  :  but  the  loss 
of  a  limb  cannot  be  so  cured.  The  cure  of  a  man  sick 
of  the  palsy  by  the  emotional  method  would  be  a  miracle 
for  spectators  of  the  first  century,  but  it  would  not  be  a 
miracle  for  us  now  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  would  be  explicable 
by  us,  but  not  by  them,  in  accordance  with  known  natural 
laws  :  but  the  restoration  of  a  lost  limb  by  faith  would 
be  a  miracle  for  them  and  for  us  alike  :  we  know  nothing 
of  any  natural  law  in  accordance  with  which  such  an  act 
could  be  performed  by  any  degree  of  faith. 

Now  it  will  be  admitted  by  all  that  the  great  majority 
of  Christ's  "  mighty  works "  were  acts  of  healing,  and 
that  many  of  these  were  expressly  attributed  by  Him  to 
faith.  "  Seeing  their  faith  "  is  the  preface,  in  each  of  the 
three  Synoptic  Gospels,  to  the  account  of  the  cure  of  the 
paralytic  man,  and  it  is  a  very  curious  preface  ;  for  it 
seems  to  shew  that  Jesus  recognized  a  kind  of  sponsorial 
and  contagious  efficacy  of  faith  in  that  instance  (as  also 
in  the  case  of  the  father  of  the  epileptic  boy)  ;  and  we 
know  by  modern  experience  of  "  faith-healing  "  how  great 
is  the  influence  of  a  sympathetic  and  trustful  audience. 
Elsewhere,  "Thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole,"  "Accord- 
ing to  your  faith  be  it  unto  you,"  "  Great  is  thy  faith,  be 


Letter  15]   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    161 

it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt,"  "  Thy  faith  hath  saved 
thee,"  "  If  thou  canst  believe,  all  things  are  possible," 
"  Believe  ye  that  I  am  able  to  do  this  ? "  "  Be  not  afraid, 
only  believe  " — these  and  similar  expressions  lead  us  to 
conclude  that  many  of  the  "mighty  works"  of  Jesus 
were  conditional  on  faith.  Perhaps  it  might  startle  you 
if  I  were  to  say  that  Jesus  was  not  able  to  perform  a 
"  mighty  work "  unless  faith  was  present ;  yet  if  I  said 
this,  I  should  only  be  repeating  what  St.  Mark  (vi.  5), 
the  earliest  of  the  Evangelists,  says  on  a  certain  occasion, 
that  on  accpunt  of  the  general  unbelief  at  Nazareth  Jesus 
was  7iot  able  (ovk  eSvvaro)  to  do  there  any  mighty  work, 
"  save  that  he  laid  his  hands  upon  a  few  sick  folk  and 
healed  them."  This  confession  is  so  frank  and  almost 
scandalizing  in  its  plainness  that  we  cannot  be  surprised 
that  the  later  Evangelist,  in  his  parallel  narrative,  softens 
it  down  by  omitting  the  words  "  was  not  able,"  and  by- 
inserting  "  many."  1  We  need  by  no  means  infer  from 
this  narrative  that  Jesus  attempted  "  mighty  works  "  and 
failed.  It  may  be  that  He  did  not  attempt  them  because 
He  discerned  the  faithlessness  of  those  around  Him, 
and  felt  His  own  consequent  inability.  But,  interpret  it 
as  we  may,  this  passage  remains  a  most  important  con- 
firmation of  the  other  passages  in  which  Jesus  Himself 
implies  the  necessity  of  faith.  Where  there  was  no  faith, 
there  Jesus  "was  not  able  to  do  any  mighty  work  ;  "  and 
this  limit  to  His  power  Jesus  Himself  recognized. 

Here  then  we  find  at  once  a  remarkable  difference 
between  most  of  the  "  mighty  works  "  of  Jesus  and  the 
"  miracles  "  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  former  were  con- 
ditional on  faith,  and,  this  condition  suggests  that  many 
of  them  may  be  explicable  on  natural   laws  ;  the  latter 

1  St.  Matthew  ix.  58,  "And  he  did  not  many  mighty  works  there  because 
of  their  unbelief."  For  a  demonstrative  proof  that  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark 
contains  the  earliest  tradition,  see  the  beginning  of  the  article  "Gospels"  in 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

M 


1 62    MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   [Letter  15 

have  no  condition  attached  to  them  and  there  is  nothing 
to  suggest  that  they  are  explicable  on  any  natural  law. 
Indeed  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  are  very  often 
wrought,  not  as  a  natural  response  to  belief,  but  as  a 
rebuke  to  unbelief:  thus  the  hand  of  Moses  is  made 
leprous  one  moment  and  pure  the  next,  in  order  to  in- 
spire him  with  faith  ;  Gideon  lays  out  a  fleece  on  the 
grass,  and  the  laws  of  nature  are  suspended  for  the 
purpose  of  making  it  wet  to-day  and  dry  to-morrow, 
simply  in  order  that  his  unbelieving  heart  may  be  en- 
couraged by  a  sign  from  God ;  the  faithless  Ahaz  is 
encouraged  by  God  in  the  Old  Testament  to  ask  for 
that  very  favour  which  Christ  in  the  New  Testament 
systematically  refused  to  the  Pharisees — a  sign  from 
heaven  :  and  for  the  sake  of  Hezekiah  (who  asks  "  What 
shall  be  the  sign  that  the  Lord  will  heal  me  ? ")  the  dial 
goes  miraculously  backward  !  Could  contrast  be  more 
complete  ? 

It  follows  that  we  shall  be  acting  hastily  if  we  place 
the  "  mighty  works  "  of  Jesus  on  the  same  level  as  the 
"  miracles  "  of  the  Old  Testament,  inasmuch  as  the  former 
are  (in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term)  "mighty  works,'' 
while  the  latter  (again  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term)  are 
"  miracles."  But  in  addition  to  this  reason,  derivable 
from  the  nature  of  the  works  themselves,  there  is  another 
reason,  derivable  from  the  evidence,  for  drawing  a  dis- 
tinction. Besides  the  direct  testimony  of  the  Gospels, 
we  have  other  testimony,  indirect  but  even  more  cogent, 
to  prove  that  Jesus  wrought  wonderful  cures.  The  earliest 
of  the  Gospels  was  probably  not  composed  in  its  present 
shape  till  more  than  a  generation  had  passed  away  after 
the  death  of  Christ ;  and,  during  the  lapse  of  thirty  years 
evidence— especially  if  handed  down  by  oral,  and  that 
too  Oriental,  tradition — may  undergo  many  corruptions. 
But  the  letters  of  St.  Paul  are  earlier,  some  of  them  much 


Letter  15]   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    163 

earlier  ;  and  many  of  them  are  of  such  an  unaffected,  per- 
sonal, informal  nature  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to 
suppose  that  they  were  written  to  express  a  conviction 
that  the  writer  did  not  feel,  or  to  make  the  readers  believe 
in  truths  which  were  no  truths.  Now  in  his  letters  St. 
Paul  quietly  assumes  that  many  of  his  fellow-Christians, 
and  he  himself  in  particular,  had  the  power  of  working 
wonderful  cures  without  the  ordinary  means.1  He  even 
sets  down  this  power  as  one  among  many  "gifts"  or 
"  graces "  vouchsafed  to  the  Church,  and  he  places  it  by 
no  means  vhigh  in  the  list.  A  man  must  be  absolutely 
destitute  of  all  power  of  literary  and  historical  criticism, 
if  he  can  persuade  himself  that  these  expressions  in  St. 
Paul's  letters  had  no  basis  of  fact,  and  that  they  were 
inserted,  though  unmeaning  both  to  the  writer  and  to  the 
hearers,  in  order  to  delude  posterity  into  a  false  belief. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  Epistles  to  indicate  the  nature  of 
the  diseases  which  were  cured  by  St.  Paul  and  his 
followers.  We  may  conjecture  with  much  probability 
that  they  were  nervous  diseases,  paralysis,  "possession," 
and  the  like,  such  as  might  be  acted  on  by  the  "  emo- 
tional shock "  of  faith  :  and  the  conjecture  is  confirmed 
by  the  fact  that,  in  the  time  of  Josephus,  healers  of  de- 
moniacs were  very  common  in  Palestine  ;  and  certain 
Jews  of  Ephesus  are  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
to  have  tried  an  experiment,  after  Paul's  manner,  in 
attempting  to  cure  a  case  of  one  "  possessed."  But  be 
this  as  it  may,  the  fact  that  St.  Paul  and  St.  Paul's  con- 
temporaries unquestionably  cured  some  kinds  of  diseases 
in  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  did  this  after  some  sort  of 

1  To  the  same  effect  is  James  V.  14,  15  :  "  Is  any  among  you  sick?  Let 
him  call  for  the  elders  of  the  church  ;  and  let  them  pray  over  him,  anointing 
him  with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  :  and  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the 
sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
refers  to  literal  healing  ;  and  it  is  interesting  as  an  indication  that  probably 
these  early  Christian  attempts  at  healing  were  often  tentative.  For  it  will 
hardly  be  maintained  that  all  who  were  thus  anointed  were  healed  :  otherwise 
death  would  have  been  exterminated  in  the  early  Christian  church. 

M    2 


.164    MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   {Letter  15 

system,  by  the  utterance  of  the  name  of  Jesus,  without 
the  ordinary  means,  is  a  very  strong  confirmation  of  the 
accuracy  of  the  Gospels  in  attributing  to  Jesus  the  power 
of  working  instantaneous  cures.  It  would  be  strange 
indeed  that  the  Disciples,  and  not  the  Master,  should 
have  had  such  powers. 

I  have  laid  stress  upon  the  fact  that  Jesus  wrought 
"  mighty  "  but  natural  cures,  in  the  first  place,  because  it 
ought  to  increase  our  appreciation  of  His  personal  influ- 
ence and  power  over  the  souls  of  men,  to  know  that  He 
not  only  possessed  this  power  in  an  unprecedented  degree 
but  also  communicated  it  to  His  disciples  ;  and  secondly, 
because  the  fact  that  He  performed  these  "  mighty  works  " 
has  naturally  led  people,  from  the  earliest  times  down  to 
the  present  day,  to  infer  that  He  performed  "  miracles." 
Even  at  the  present  time  you  will  find  that  the  great  mass 
of  Christians  make  no  distinction  at  all  between  healing 
a  paralytic  or  a  demoniac  or  a  dumb  man,  and  restoring  a 
severed  ear  or  blasting  a  fig-tree  :  all  alike  seem  to  them 
"  miracles."  If  this  is  so  even  in  these  days,  in  spite  of 
physiology,  you  cannot  be  surprised  that  the  first  Chris- 
tians and  their  followers  made  no  such  distinction  ;  they 
assumed  that  the  man  who  could  heal  a  paralytic  by  a 
word  could  heal  any  other  disease  in  the  same  way,  and 
do  any  other  work  he  pleased  contrary  to  the  course  of 
nature.  This  belief  would  prepare  the  way  for  attributing  to 
Jesus  other  works  of  a  very  different  kind,  real "  miracles," 
that  is,  suspensions  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Considering 
the  multitude  of  such  acts  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  having  been  performed  by  Moses,  Elijah,  Elisha  and 
others,  we  may  well  be  surprised  to  find  how  very  few 
have  been  attributed  to  Jesus  :  and  I  believe  it  can 
be  shewn  that  each  of  these  few  has  originated  from 
some  misunderstanding,  and  without  any  intention  to 
deceive.      Of  almost  all  of  these  real  "  miracles,"  said 


Letter  15]   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    165 

to  have  been  wrought  by  Christ,  I  believe  we  are  justified 
in  saying  with  Bishop  Temple  that,  if  we  take  each  by 
itself,  we  cannot  find  for  it  any  "  clear,  and  unmistake- 
able,  and  sufficient  evidence." l  So  far  from  being  an  ex- 
aggeration this  is  rather  an  understatement  of  the  case  : 
there  is  not  only  no  "  clear  and  unmistakeable  and  suffi- 
cient evidence  "  for  them,  there  is  also  very  strong  indi- 
rect evidence  against  some  of  them.  In  some  future  letter 
I  may  deal  in  detail  with  these  miracles  ;  for  the  present 
I  will  select  only  one. 

This  one  shall  be  the  most  striking  of  all  the  miracles 
in  the  New  Testament,  a  miracle  exceeding  in  wonder 
even  the  raising  of  Lazarus.  It  is  found  only  in  St. 
Matthew's  Gospel,  and  describes  an  incident  that  followed 
immediately  on  the  death  of  Jesus.  Here  are  the  exact 
words  : 

"And  the  earth  did  quake,  and  the  tombs  were  opened  ;  and  many  bodies 
of  the  saints  that  had  fallen  asleep  were  raised  ;  and  coming  forth  out  of  the 
tombs  after  his  resurrecnon  they  entered  into  the  Holy  City  and  appeared 
unto  many." 

Have  I  at  all  exaggerated  this  miracle  in  declaring 
it  to  be  more  startling  than  even  the  raising  of  Lazarus  ? 
It  records  the  resurrection,  not  of  one  man,  but  of 
many.  Nor  are  we  allowed  by  the  author  to  suppose 
that  he  referred  to  visions  of  the  dead,  appearing  unto 
friends  ;  for  he  tells  us  that  "  the  tombs  were  opened,  and 
many  bodies  of  the  saints  arose."  Moreover  this  would 
appear  to  have  been  a  miracle  not  wrought  in  private  as 
many  of  the  mighty  works  of  Jesus  were,  nor  a  sight  vouch- 
safed to  a  chosen  few  (like  the  manifestations  of  Jesus 
after  death)  ;  for  these  "bodies"  went  into  Jerusalem, 

1  Bishop  Temple  excepts  only  the  Resurrection,  which  is  not  here  under 
consideration.  His  words  are  :  "  It  is  true  too  that,  if  we  take  each  miracle 
by  itself,  there  is  but  one  miracle,  namely  our  Lord's  Resurrection,  for 
which  clear,  and  unmistakeable,  and  sufficient  evidence  is  given" — 
Bampton  Lectures,  p.  154. 


166    MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   [Letter  15 

during  the  Passover,  at  a  time  when  the  city  was 
thronged  with  visitors,  and  "appeared  unto  many."  What 
subsequently  became  of  these  "  bodies  " — whether  they 
remained  on  earth  till  the  Ascension  when  they  ascended 
with  Jesus,  or  whether  they  lived  their  lives  over  again 
and  were  buried  a  second  time,  or  whether  they  went 
back  to  their  tombs  again  after  they  had  appeared  in 
Jerusalem — is  a  question  of  some  difficulty,  which  has 
exercised  the  minds  of  commentators  and  has  been 
answered  rather  variously  than  satisfactorily.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  the  miracle  must  be  confessed  by  all  to  be 
stupendous. 

Now  for  the  evidence  of  it.  I  have  been  quoting  from 
St.  Matthew's  account  of  this  miracle.  What  would  a 
dispassionate  and  intelligent  heathen  say  of  it,  coming 
for  the  first  time  to  the  study  of  our  four  Gospels  ?  Would 
it  not  be  something  of  this  sort :  "  Here  you  call  on  me 
to  believe  a  miracle  that  appears  to  me  to  be  motiveless 
and  is  certainly  singularly  startling  :  but  I  will  suspend 
my  judgment  of  it  till  I  hear  the  accounts  given  by  your 
other  three  Evangelists.  What  do  they  say  of  the  effect 
produced  upon  the  disciples  and  bystanders  by  this  earth- 
quake and  this  most  extraordinary  resurrection  ?  There 
were  present  the  women  that  loved  and  followed  J  esus, 
there  was  the  Roman  centurion,  there  were  '  many '  who 
witnessed  the  appearances  of  the  dead  :  even  to  those 
who  were  not  present,  an  earthquake  rending  the  rocks 
in  the  neighbourhood  could  not  be  imperceptible  :  what 
therefore  is  said  on  these  points  by  other  contemporary 
authors  as  well  as  by  your  four  Gospels  ?  Tell  me 
that  first  ;  and  then  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  of  the 
miracle." 

In  answer  to  this  request,  which  I  think  we  must 
characterize  as  a  very  natural  one,  we  should  have  first 
to  admit  that  no  profane  author  makes  any  mention  of 


Letter  15]   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    167 

the  resurrection  of  these  numerous  "  bodies,"  nor  of  the 
earthquake  that  accompanied  it.  Then  we  should  have 
to  set  down  the  four  records  of  the  four  Evangelists  as 
follows  : 


Mark  xv.  37-39. 

37.  And  Jesus 
uttered  a  loud 
voice  and  gave 
up  the  ghcst. 

38.  And  the 
veil  of  the  temple 
was  rent  in  twain 
from  the  top  to 
the  bottom. 


[A  blank.} 


39.  And  when 
the  centurion, 
which  stood  by- 
over  against  him, 
saw  that  he  so 
gave  up  the 
ghost,  he  said, 
Truly  this  man 
was  the  Son  of 
God. 


Matt,  xxvii.  50-54. 

50.  And  Jesus 
cried  again  with  a 
loud  voice,  and 
yielded  up  his  spirit. 

51.  And  behold 
the  veil  of  the  tem- 
ple was  rent  in 
twain  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom  [and 
the  earth  did 
quake,  and  the 
rocks  were  rent ; 
(52)  And  the  tombs 
were  opened;  and 
many  bodies  of  the 
saints  that  had 
fallen  asleep  were 
raised;  (53)  And 
coining  forth  out  of 
the  tombs  after  his 
rcsiirrection  ihey 
entered  into  the 
holy  city  and  ap- 
peared unto  many.} 
54.  Now  the  cen- 
turion, and  they 
that  were  with  him, 
watching  Jesus, 
when  they  saw  [the 
earthquake  and] 
the  things  that  were 
done,  feared  ex- 
ceedingly, sayiner, 
Truly  this  was  the 
Son  of  God. 


Luke  xxii.  46-7.  John  xix.  30,  31. 

46.  And    when  30.    And      he 

Jesus    had   cried  bowed   his    head 

with  a  loud  voice,  and  gave  up  his 


he  said,  Father, 
into  thy  hands 
I  commend  my 
spirit:  and  having 
said  this,  he  gave 
up  the  ghost. 


[A  blank.] 


47.  And  when 
the  centurion  saw 
what  was  done, 
he  glorified  God, 
saying.  Certainly 
this  was  a  right- 
eous man. 


spirit. 


[A  blank.] 


31.  The  Jews 
therefore. because 
it  was  the  pre- 
paration, &c. 


You  see  then  that  this  extraordinary  incident,  startling 
enough  to  be  the  very  centre  of  a  galaxy  of  wonders,  is 
omitted  by  three  out  of  the  four  Eva?igelists.  You  see 
also  that  two  of  the  Evangelists  agree  with  St.  Matthew  in 
placing  a  centurion  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  and  in  assign- 
ing to  him  expressions  of  faith :  but  neither  of  them 
mentions  the  "  earthquake  "  as  being  even  a  partial  cause 


i6S    MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   [Letter  15 

of  the  centurion's  faith,  nor  is  there  so  much  as  a 
hint  of  any  resurrection  of  the  "  bodies  of  saints  "  from 
the  tombs. 

Now  if  you  and  I,  with  full  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
were  writing  a  biography  of  a  great  man,  we  might  un- 
doubtedly exhibit  many  variations  and  divergences  in  our 
story.  Every  biographer  who  knows  everything  about  a 
man  must  omit  something  ;  many  things  therefore  that 
you  would  omit,  I  should  insert,  and  vice  versa.  But  sup- 
pose we  were  writing  in  some  detail  the  description  of 
the  great  man's  execution  (as  the  crucifixion  is  written  in 
great  detail  by  the  Evangelists),  and,  in  particular,  the 
emotion  and  utterances  of  the  soldier  who  superintended  the 
execution.  Is  it  possible  under  these  circumstances  that 
you  should  relate  (and  with  truth)  that  the  soldier's  emo- 
tion was  caused  in  part  by  an  earthquake  which  happened 
at  the  moment  of  the  man's  death — adding  also  that  a 
large  number  of  people  rose  at  the  same  time  bodily  from 
the  graves— and  that  I,  with  a  full  knowledge  that  both 
these  facts  are  true,  should  make  no  mention  at  all  either 
of  the  earthquake  or  of  this  stupendous  resurrection  ?  I 
say  that  such  an  omission  of  facts  is  absolutely  impossible 
in  any  sincere  and  straightforward  biographer,  o?i  the  sup- 
position that  he  knows  them.  The  argument  that  "it  is 
unsafe  to  argue  from  silence  "  is  quite  inapplicable  here  : 
nor  is  it  in  point  to  allege  the  silence  of  a  courtly  historian 
who  writes  the  life  of  Constantine  but  omits  the  Emperor's 
execution  of  his  son.  The  answer  is  that  we  have  not 
here  to  do  with  courtly  historians,  but  with  simple 
unsophisticated  compilers  of  tradition  whose  main  object 
was  to  set  down  in  truth  and  honesty  all  that  could  shew 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  Now  it  is  im- 
possible that  the  Evangelists  should  not  have  recognized  in 
this  miracle,  if  true,  a  cogent  proof— cogent  for  the  minds  of 
men  in  these  days— of  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus  :  we  are 


Letter  15]   MIRACLES  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT    169 

therefore  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  they  omitted  it  either 
oecause  they  had  never  heard  of  it,  or  because  although 
they  had  heard  of  it,  they  did  not  believe  it  to  be  true. 

You  must  not  however  suppose  that  this  evidently 
legendary  narrative  was  added  with  any  intent  to  falsify. 
Like  many  of  the  miraculous  accounts  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, this  story  is  probably  the  result  of  misunderstanding 
— an  allegory  misinterpreted.  The  death  of  Christ 
abolished  the  gulf  between  God  and  man  ;  it  tore  down 
the  veil  between  the  Holy  Place  and  the  Holy  of  Holies, 
whereby  Christ  took  mankind,  in  Himself  and  with  Him- 
self, into  the  direct  presence  of  the  Father:  and  this 
spiritual  truth  found  a  literal  interpretation  in  two  of  the 
Gospels  which  mention  the  "  rending  of  the  veil."  But 
Christ's  death  did  more  than  this.  It  struck  down  the 
power  of  death  itself  :  it  broke  open  the  tombs,  and  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  Resurrection  of  the  Saints  ;  and 
this  spiritual  truth,  being  misinterpreted  as  if  it  were 
literally  true,  gave  rise  to  a  tradition  (which  does  not  how- 
ever seem  to  have  been  widely  received)  that  at  the 
moment  of  Christ's  death  certain  tombs  were  actually 
broken  open,  and  certain  of  "  the  Saints  "  rose  bodily  from 
the  dead  and  walked  into  Jerusalem.1 

1  In  the  early  apocryphal  work  called  Christ's  Descent  into  Hell,  a  striking 
description  is  given  of  the  joy  of  the  saints  and  the  terror  of  Satan,  when 
Christ  descends  to  Hades  and  rescues  the  dead,  leading  them  up  to  Paradise. 
In  one  of  the  versions  of  this  work,  the  number  of  those  "risen  with  the 
Lord  "  is  mentioned  as  "  twelve  thousand  men." 


170  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


XVI 

My  dear , 

You  force  me  to  digress.  My  object  just  now  was  to 
shew  that  the  life  of  Christ  (no  less  than  the  history  of 
the  redemption  of  Israel)  can  be  disentangled  from 
"  miracles",  although  not  from  "  mighty  works "  ;  and  I 
proposed  to  take  the  six  or  seven  principal  miracles 
attributed  to  Christ  by  the  Synoptists  and  to  shew  of  each 
account  that  it  may  have  naturally  and  easily  crept  into 
the  Gospels  without  any  intention  to  deceive. 

But  you  will  not  let  me  go  on  in  my  own  way  ;  for  you 
ask  a  question  that  claims  immediate  answer,  and  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  Yes  or  No  :  "  Did  or  did  not, 
the  Publican  and  Apostle  St.  Matthew  write  the  Gospel 
attributed  to  him?  And  if  he  did,  how  can  he  have 
suffered  a  '  legendary '  miracle  to  '  creep  into '  his 
narrative  ?  The  same  question,"  you  add,  "  applies  to  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John.  If  these  two  Gospels,  as  they  stand, 
were  written  by  Apostles,  that  is,  by  personal  disciples  of 
Jesus  and  eye-witnesses  of  the  events  they  profess  to 
describe,  then  there  is  no  alternative  ;  either  Jesus  wrought 
miracles,  or  the  Apostles  lied.  No  eye-witness  can  err  as 
you  suppose  some  one  (I  know  not  whom)  to  have 
erred,  by  interpreting  metaphor  as  though  it  were  literal 
statement.  Imagine  Boswell,  for  example,  misinterpreting 
some  metaphorical  expression  concerning  Dr.  Johnson  to 
the  effect  that  '  the  great  lexicographer  was  exalted  by  his 
countrymen    to  the  pinnacle  of  honour  and  fame '  and 


Letter  16]      THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  171 

consequently  inferring  that  his  statue  was  set  up  on  a 
column  like  Lord  Nelson  or  the  Duke  of  York  !  The 
notion  is  too  grotesque.  If  then  Jesus  did  not  perform 
miracles  we  are  forced  to  conclude  either  that  the  Apostles 
deceived  us  or  that  the  Gospels  bearing  their  names  are 
forgeries.     Which  is  it  ?  " 

In  order  to  meet  this  objection  I  must  say  a  few  words 
about  the  composition  of  the  Gospels.  For  indeed  your 
question  shews  a  complete  misapprehension  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Gospels  grew  up,  and  of  the  ancient 
notions  about  authorship.  In  particular,  you  are  far  too 
free  in  the  use  of  the  word  "  forgeries."  The  book  called 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  contains  some  of  the  noblest 
sentiments  that  have  ever  found  eloquent  expression,  and 
yet  the  philosophic  author  who  composed  it  (probably  in 
Alexandria  about  eight  or  nine  centuries  after  Solomon's 
death)  does  not  hesitate  to  appeal  to  the  Almighty  in 
words  by  which  he  ascribes  the  authorship  to  Solomon 
himself:  "Thou  hast  chosen  me  to  be  a  king  of  Thy 
people  and  a  judge  of  Thy  sons  and  daughters  :  Thou 
hast  commanded  me  to  build  a  temple  upon  Thy  Holy 
mount,"  (ix.  7,  8).  Now  do  you  call  him  a  forger?  The 
book  of  Ecclesiastes,  one  of  our  own  canonical  books, 
declares  that  it  was  written  by  "  the  son  of  David,  king  in 
Jerusalem  "  and  that  the  author  was  a  "  King  over  Israel 
in  Jerusalem,"  (i.  1 — 12).  No  one  now  (worth  mentioning) 
believes  these  statements  to  be  true.  Yet  would  you  call 
the  composer  of  Ecclesiastes  a  forger?  Probably  in 
both  cases  the  authors  felt  that  they  were  honouring  the 
memory  of  the  great  king  in  thus  introducing  new  truths 
to  the  world  under  the  protection  of  his  name.  I  believe 
many  other  instances  might  be  given  of  the  literary  laxity 
of  ancient  times.  But  besides,  in  the  case  of  the  Gospels, 
you  must  remember  that  authorship  hardly  came  into 
question  at  all  events  for  a  long  time.      The  story  of  the 


172  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS     [Letter  16 

life  of  Christ  would  be,  in  some  shape,  current  among  the 
Church  as  the  common  property  of  all,  as  soon  as  the 
Apostles  began  to  proclaim  the  Gospel.  Probably  it  was 
not,  for  some  time,  reduced  to  writing.  Among  the  Jews 
the  Old  Testament  was  spoken  of  as  Writing  or  Scripture  ; 
but  their  most  revered  and  sacred  comments  on  it  were 
retained  in  oral  tradition  :  and  hence  all  through  the 
New  Testament  you  will  find  that  ''Scripture"  refers  to 
the  Old  Testament,  and  that  no  mention  is  made  of  the 
doctrine  about  Christ  except  as  "  tradition •"'  or  "  teaching." 
What  therefore  would  probably  at  first  be  current  in  the 
Church,  perhaps  for  thirty  or  forty  years  after  Christ1  s  death, 
would  be  simply  a  number  of  "traditions"  or  oral  versions  of 
the  Gospel,  current  perhaps  in  different  shapes  at  the  great 
ecclesiastical  centres,  such  as  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Ephesus, 
Alexandria,  Rome,  yet  presenting  a  general  affinity,  and 
all  claiming  to  represent  "  the  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles  " 
or  to  be  "  the  Gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ/' 

It  ought  not  to  seem  strange  to  you  that  the  Church 
could  exist,  and  the  Good  Tidings  be  preached  for 
some  years  without  the  aid  of  written  Gospels.  Did  not 
St.  Paul  preach  the  Gospel  in  his  letters?  Surely  he 
preached  it  very  effectually  :  yet  his  letters  do  not  contain 
a  single  quotation  from  any  written  Gospel.1  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  letters  attributed  to  St.  Peter,  St. 
James,  and  St.  John  :  not  one  quotes  a  single  saying  of 
Christ,  or  contains  a  phrase  that  can  be  said,  with  cer- 
tainty, to  be  borrowed  from  our  Gospels.  The  book  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  earliest  summary  of  Church 
history,  contains  many  speeches  by  Apostles,  one  by  St. 
James,  some  by  St.  Peter  and  several  by  St.  Paul  :  in  all 
these  speeches  only  one  saying  of  our  Lord  is  quoted  ;  and 

1  If  i  Tim.  v.  18  were  an  exception,  it  would  shew  that  that  letter,  quoting 
a  Gospel  as  "  Scripture,"  was  later  than  St.  Paul.  But  it  is  possibly  not  an 
exception. 


Letter  16]      THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  173 

that  is  a  saying  not  found  in  any  of  our  extant  Gospels. 
Conjecture  might  have  led  us  to  conclude  that  this  would 
be  so.  We  might  reasonably  have  inferred  that,  as  long 
as  the  Church  had  in  its  midst  the  Apostles  and  their 
companions,  and  as  long  also  as  they  daily  expected  that 
Christ  would  "  come,"  the  notion  of  committing  the  Gospel 
to  writing  for  posterity  would  seem  superfluous,  distasteful, 
almost  implying  a  want  of  faith.  But  when  we  find  this  con- 
jecture confirmed  by  the  undeniable  fact  that  the  earliest 
teachers  and  preachers  of  the  Gospel,  in  their  teaching  as  it 
is  handed  down  to  us,  made  no  use  whatever  of  our  written 
Gospels,  we  may  regard  it  as  a  safe  conclusion  that,  during 
the  first  generation  after  the  crucifixion,  written  Gospels 
were  neither  widely  used  nor  much  needed. 

But  soon  the  need  would  arise.  One  after  another  the 
Apostles  and  their  companions  would  pass  away,  and 
Christ's  immediate  "  coming  "  would  now  be  less  and  less 
sanguinely  anticipated.  The  great  mass  of  the  earliest 
Christians  were  either  Jews  or  proselytes  to  the  Jewish 
religion  ;  but  now  the  Gentiles,  who  had  come  to  Christ 
without  first  passing  through  the  Law  of  Moses,  would 
become  the  majority  in  the  Church  ;  and  for  them  the 
Old  Testament  would  not  have  the  same  pre-eminent 
title  as  "Writing"  or  "Scripture."  For  these  Gentiles 
too  the  old  Rabbinical  prejudice  against  committing  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  to  writing  would  have  no  weight. 
Now  therefore  in  several  churches  simultaneous  efforts 
would  be  made  to  write  down  the  traditions  current 
amongst  the  brethren  ;  and  hence  we  find  St.  Luke  pre- 
facing his  own  Gospel  with  the  remark  that  he  was 
induced  to  attempt  this  task  because  "  many"  others  had 
attempted  it.  St.  Luke  could  hardly  have  written  thus  if 
one  authentic  and  apostolic  document  already  occupied  the 
ground  and  stood  pre-eminent  in  the  Church  as  the  written 
record  of  Christ's  life  by  an  eye-witness.     That  there  was 


174  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS     [Letter  16 

no  such  document,  known  to  St.  Luke,  we  may  also  infer 
from  his  acknowledgment  of  his  obligations  to  those  who 
were  "  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of  the  word."  It  says 
that  he  shapes  his  narrative  "  as  they  handed  down  the 
tradition" — for  that  is  the  meaning  of  his  word — not  "as 
they  wrote  the  tradition.''  You  must  have  noticed  that 
the  extant  titles  of  the  Gospels  declare  them  to  have 
been  written  not  "  by,"  but  "  according  to  "  their  several 
authors.  The  explanation  (which  has  not  been  successfully 
impugned)  is  that,  even  in  the  later  times  in  which  their 
titles  were  given,  the  old  belief  continued,  that  the  men 
who  compiled  them  did  no  more  than  commit  to  writing 
their  version  of  a  tradition  already  current.  They  did  not 
compose,  they  reported,  the  tradition  ;  the  Gospel  was 
supposed  to  be  the  same  in  all  Churches,  but  here 
"  according  to''  one  version  or  writer, there  "according  to" 
another.  The  Apostles,  being  with  one  or  two  exceptions 
mere  fishermen  and  unlearned  men,  ignorant  of  letters, 
could  not  very  well  be  supposed  to  be  authors  of  written 
compositions ;  but  St.  Matthew,  being  a  tax-gatherer,  would 
necessarily  be  an  expert  writer,  and  therefore  one  of  the 
earliest  traditions  committed  to  writing  would  be  naturally 
attributed  to  his  penmanship.  But  the  evidence  for  St. 
Matthew's  authorship  appears,  when  tested,  to  be  ex- 
tremely slight.  It  was  the  universal  belief  of  the  early 
Church  that  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew  was 
originally  written  in  Hebrew,  and  Jerome  has  quoted, 
as  coming  from  the  Hebrew  original,  a  passage  not  found 
in  our  Greek  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew.  Even  when  this 
Gospel  is  quoted  by  the  earliest  writers,  it  is  frequently 
quoted  inexactly,  and  never  connected  by  them  with  the 
name  of  St.  Matthew  as  the  author.  We  ought  not  to 
infer  from  these  unnamed  and  inexact  quotations  that  the 
writers  did  not  recognize  St.  Matthew  as  the  author, 
for  their  habit  is   almost   invariably  to  quote  Gospels, 


Letter  16]     THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  175 

simply  as  Gospel,  inexactly,  and  without  mentioning  the 
name  of  the  Evangelist.  But  this  unfortunate  habit 
leaves  us  without  any  early  and  trustworthy  evidence  for 
St.  Matthew's  authorship.  On  the  whole,  then,  there  is 
very  little  evidence  for  supposing  that  any  part  of  our 
present  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew  was  written  by 
an  Apostle  or  by  an  eye-witness  of  Christ's  life,  and 
there  is  very  much  evidence  tending  to  shew  that  such  a 
supposition  is  extremely  improbable. 

Even  if  we  grant  that  parts  of  the  Gospel  were  com- 
posed by  an  Apostle,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the 
whole  was.  There  was  a  very  natural  tendency,  in  the 
earliest  days  of  the  Church — when  the  traditional  Gospel 
was  as  it  were  everybody's  property  and  had  not  yet 
acquired  the  authority  of  Scripture — to  make  the  tradition 
as  full,  as  edifying,  and  as  correct,  as  possible.  If  we 
may  judge  from  the  style  of  the  book  of  Revelation 
(which  is  said  on  rather  more  substantial  grounds  than 
are  generally  alleged  for  the  authorship  of  most  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  to  have  been  the  work  of 
the  Apostle  John)  the  earliest  Greek  traditions  must  have 
been  composed  in  an  ungrammatical,  mongrel  kind  of 
Greek,  which  must  have  been  as  distasteful  to  the  well- 
educated  Christian  as  cockney  English  or  pigeon  English 
would  be  to  us.  This  could  not  long  be  tolerated  in 
traditions  that  were  repeated  in  the  presence  of  the  whole 
congregation  ;  and  alterations  of  style,  for  edification, 
would  naturally  facilitate  alterations  of  matter,  also  for 
edification.  The  love  of  completeness  would  introduce 
many  corrections  and  sometimes  corruptions.  Often, 
in  those  early  times,  the  teacher,  catechist,  or  scribe, 
who  knew  some  additional  fact  tending  to  Christ's  glory, 
and  not  mentioned  in  the  tradition  or  document,  would 
think  that  he  was  not  doing  his  duty  if  he  did  not  add  it 
to  his  oral  or  written  version  of  the  tradition.     Even  in 


1 76  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS       [Letter  16 

MSS.  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  centuries  we  have  abundant 
instances  to  shew  how  this  tendency  multiplied  interpo- 
lations ;  principally  by  interpolating  passages  from  one 
Gospel  into  another,  but  sometimes  by  interpolating 
traditions  not  found  now  in  any  Gospel  with  which  we 
are  acquainted.  Occasionally  there  are  also  corruptions 
of  omission,  arising  from  the  desire  to  omit  difficult  or 
apparently  inconsistent  passages  ;  but  by  far  the  more 
common  custom  is  to  add.  If  this  corrupting  tendency  was 
in  force  in  the  fourth  century  when  the  Christian  religion 
was  on  the  point  of  becoming  the  religion  of  the  empire, 
and  when  the  sacred  books  of  Christianity  had  attained 
to  a  position  of  authority  in  the  Church  not  a  whit  below 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  you  may  easily  imagine 
what  a  multitude  of  interpolations  and  amplifications 
must  have  crept  into  the  original  tradition  at  a  time  when 
it  was  still  young,  unauthoritative,  and  plastic,  during  the 
first  two  or  three  generations  that  followed  the  death  of 
Christ.  The  result  of  all  these  considerations  is  that  we 
are  not  obliged — and  this,  to  my  mind,  is  a  great  relief — 
to  suppose  that  any  passage  which  we  may  be  forced  to 
reject  from  our  Gospels  as  false,  was  written  by  an  Apostle. 
I  say  this  is  to  me  a  great  relief,  but  perhaps  it  is  not 
so  to  you.  Your  notion  of  what  the  Gospels  ought  to  be, 
is  perhaps  borrowed  from  a  passage  in  Paley's  Evidences 
where  he  likens  the  evidences  for  the  miracles  of  Christ  to 
that  of  twelve  eye-witnesses,  all  ready  to  be  martyrs  in 
attestation  of  the  truth  of  their  testimony ;  and  you  are 
shocked  perhaps  when  you  find  that  the  Gospels  fall  very 
far  indeed  below  the  level  of  such  a  standard  of  evidence. 
What  would  have  seemed  best  to  you  would  have  been  an 
exact  record  of  Christ's  teaching  and  acts,  drawn  up  by 
one  of  the  Apostles  in  the  name  of  the  Twelve,  duly 
dated  and  signed  by  all,  and  circulated  and  received  by 
the  whole  Church  from  the  day  after  the  Ascension  down 


Letter  \6\   THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  177 

to  the  present  time.  And  I  quite  agree  with  you.  But 
then,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  history  of  astronomy  and  in 
the  history  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  has  not  pleased  God 
to  reveal  Himself  or  His  works  to  men  in  the  way 
which  men  have  thought  best.  Now  you  are  not  indeed 
obliged  to  infer  that,  because  revelation  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  accompanied  by  illusion,  therefore  revelation 
in  the  New  Testament  must  have  contained  a  similar 
alloy  ;  but  you  ought  at  least  to  be  prepared  for  such 
a  discovery.  For  me,  it  would  be  a  terrible  shock  indeed 
if  I  were  forced  to  suppose  that  a  faithful  Apostle  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  had  wilfully  misrepresented  the 
truth  with  a  view  to  glorify  His  Master  :  but  it  is  no 
shock  at  all  to  find  that  the  highest  revelation  of  God  to 
man  has  been,  like  all  other  revelations,  to  some  extent 
misinterpreted,  obscured,  materialized.  I  have  learned 
to  accept  this  as  an  inevitable  law  of  our  present  nature. 
If  it  had  been  God's  will  to  suspend  this  law  of  nature  in 
favour  of  the  New  Testament,  I  think  He  would  have 
consistently  gone  further,  and  miraculously  prevented  the 
scribes  from  making  errors,  or  posterity  from  per- 
petuating them.  But  how  can  I  think  God  has  done  this, 
when  I  know  that  even  the  words  of  the  Lord's  own 
Prayer  are  variously  reported  in  the  two  Gospels  of  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  and  that  every  page  of  a  critical 
edition  of  the  New  Testament  teems  with  various  readings 
between  which  the  ablest  commentators  are  perplexed 
to  decide  ? 

You  must  therefore  make  up  your  mind  to  believe  that 
the  earliest  Gospel  traditions — and  even  that  triply  at- 
tested tradition1  which  is  common  to  the  first  three  Gospels 

1  "Attested"  is  not  the  same  as  "originated."  The  tradition  may  (possibly) 
have  been  originated  by  a  single  author  :  but  witness,  or  "  attestation,"  was 
borne  to  its  authoritative  character  by  the  three  earliest  Gospels,  whose 
authors,    or  compilers,    independently  adopted  it.     It  is  therefore   "triply 

attested." 

N 


17S  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS     [Letter  16 

and  which  runs  through  the  three  with  a  separate  character 
of  its  own,  like  a  distinguishable  stream — passed  through 
several  phases  before  they  assumed  their  present  shape. 
In  my  next  letter  I  shall  probably  ask  you  to  consider 
what  phases  they  passed  through  ;  but  you  may  perhaps 
expect  me  to  say  something  at  once  about  the  Fourth 
Gospel  ;  for  to  that  book  many  of  the  previous  remarks 
do  not  apply.  It  was  much  later  than  the  rest ;  it  has 
little  in  subject-matter,  and  nothing  at  all  in  style,  in 
common  with  the  rest ;  it  contains  scarcely  a  word  of  the 
Common  Tradition  which  pervades  the  first  three  Gospels  ; 
it  probably  passed  through  no  phases  and  suffered  few 
accretions  ;  and  it  differs  from  the  other  Gospels,  even 
from  St.  Luke's,  in  bearing  a  far  more  manifest  impress 
of  personal  authorship.  The  three  synoptic  Gospels 
really  agree  with  their  titles  in  representing  the  Gospel 
"according  to"  their  several  authors;  but  the  Fourth 
Gospel  (although,  like  the  rest,  preceded  by  "  according 
to")  is  a  Gospel  written  "by" — whoever  wrote  it. 

The  question  is,  who  did  write  it?  If  it  was  written  by 
an  Apostle,  an  eye-witness  of  the  life  of  Christ,  then  we 
have  to  face — I  am  not  sure  we  have  to  accept — your 
alternative :  "  Either  Jesus  worked  miracles,  or  the 
Apostles  lied."  But  there  is  very  little  evidence  (worth 
calling  evidence)  for  the  hypothesis  that  an  Apostle 
wrote  it,  and  much  evidence  against  that  hypothesis. 
St.  John,  the  reputed  author,  is  said,  on  the  evidence  of 
Justin  Martyr,  to  have  written  the  Apocalypse  ;  which, 
while  it  resembles  in  style  what  we  might  have  expected 
from  a  Galilean  fisherman,  differs  entirely  from  the  style 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Whoever  wrote  the  Gospel,  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  did  not  reproduce  the  words 
of  Jesus,  but  gave  rather  what  appeared  to  him  to  be 
their  latent  and  spiritual  meaning.  This  can  be  proved 
as  follows.      Suppose  three  writers— say  Boswell,   Mrs. 


Later  16]     THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  179 

Thrale,  and  Goldsmith — had  composed  accounts  of  the  life 
and  sayings  of  Dr.  Johnson,  widely  differing  in  the  subject- 
matter  and  style  of  the  narrative,  but  closely  agreeing  in 
the  character  of  Johnson's  thoughts,  as  reported  by  them, 
and  very  often  agreeing  in  the  actual  words  imputed  to 
Johnson  ;  and  suppose  a  fourth  writer,  say  Burke,  had 
written  his  reminiscences  of  Dr.  Johnson,  which  entirely 
differed  in  language,  in  thought,  and  in  subject-matter  from 
the  first  three  :  would  you  not  say  at  once  that  this  was 
strong  proof,  that  Burke  did  not  report  Dr.  Johnson's  actual 
words,  and  -that  he  had  probably  tinged  them  with  his 
own  style  and  thought  ?  But  if  furthermore  Burke  reported 
Dr.  Johnson's  words  and  long  discourses  in  the  same 
language  as  he  reported  Sheridan's,  and  in  language 
i?idistinguishable  from  his  own  contextual  narrative,  then 
you  would,  I  am  sure,  find  it  difficult  to  be  patient  with 
any  one  who,  through  force  of  prejudice  and  pleasing 
associations,  obstinately  maintained  that  Burke's  bio- 
graphy was  equally  faithful  and  exact  with  the  three  other 
concordant  or  synoptic  biographies.  Now  this  comparison 
exactly  represents  the  facts.  You  will  find  several  of  the 
most  learned  and  painstaking  commentators  differing  as 
to  where  the  introductory  words  of  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  cease,  and  where  John  the  Baptist's  words  begin  ; 
and  the  style  of  our  Lord's  discourses  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  quite  indistinguishable  from  the  style  of  the  author 
himself.  As  to  the  immense  difference,  in  respect  of  style 
and  thought  and  subject-matter,  between  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  you  must  have  felt  it, 
even  as  a  child,  reading  them  in  English. 

I  must  refer  you  to  the  article  on  "Gospels"  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  for  what  I  believe  to  be  the  most 
probable  explanation  of  the  origin  of  this  remarkable  work. 
It  is  there  shewn  that  there  are  extraordinary  points  of  simi- 
larity between  the  emblematic  language  and  emblematic 

N  2 


1S0  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS     [Letter  16 

acts  attributed  to  Jesus  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  the 
emblematic  conceptions  of  the  Alexandrine  philosopher 
Philo,  who  flourished  some  sixty  or  seventy  years  before 
that  Gospel  was  written.  Dealing,  for  instance,  with 
the  dialogue  between  Jesus  and  the  woman  of  Samaria 
near  the  well  at  Sychem,  the  writer  of  that  article  shews 
that,  in  the  works  of  Philo,  the  well  is  an  emblem  of  the 
search  after  knowledge ;  Sychem  is  an  emblem  of 
materialism  ;  the  "five  husbands," — or,  as  Philo  calls  them, 
"  five  seducers  " — represent  the  five  senses  ;  so  that  the 
whole  dialogue  appears  to  contain  a  poetic  appeal  to  the 
heathen  world,  to  turn  from  the  materialistic  knowledge 
which  can  never  satisfy,  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Word  of 
God  which  is  the  "  living  water."  Still  more  remarkable 
is  Philo's  emblematic  use  of  Lazarus  (or  Eleazar,  for  the 
words  are  the  same)  as  a  type  of  dead  humanity,  helpless 
and  lifeless  till  it  has  been  raised  up  by  the  help  of  the 
Lord.  But  into  this  I  have  no  space  to  enter.  If  you 
care  to  pursue  the  subject,  I  must  refer  you  to  the  article 
above  mentioned.  Canon  Westcott  has  pointed  out  that 
in  arrangement  and  structure  the  Fourth  Gospel  has 
some  distinct  poetic  features.  I  should  go  further  and 
say  that,  in  this  Gospel,  History  is  subordinated  to  poetic 
purpose,  and  that  its  narratives  of  incidents,  resting 
sometimes  on  a  basis  of  fact,  but  more  often  on  a  basis 
of  metaphor,  are  intended  not  so  much  to  describe  inci- 
dents as  to  lead  the  reader  to  spiritual  conclusions. 

We  have  no  account  of  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  till  the  year  170  A.D.,  and  this  we  find  to  be 
"already  legendary."1  It  is  there  said  that,  being 
requested  by  his  fellow-disciples  and  bishops  to  write 
a  Gospel,  John  desired  them  to  fast  for  three  days  and 
then  to  relate  to  one  another  what  revelation  each  had 

1  "The  Fragment  of  Muratori,"  Westcott,  Introdziction  to  the  Gospels, 
P-  255- 


Letter  16]    THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  iSi 

received.  It  was  then  revealed  to  the  Apostle  Andrew 
that  "  while  all  endeavoured  to  recall  their  experiences, 
John  should  write  everything  in  his  own  name."  No 
confidence  can  be  placed  in  the  exactness  of  testimony 
that  comes  so  long  after  the  event ;  but  it  points  to  some 
kind  of  joint  contribution  or  revision  such  as  is  implied 
in  John  xxi.  24:  "This  is  the  disciple  which  testifieth  of 
these  things  and  we  know  that  his  testimony  is  true." 
That  the  Gospel  was  written  "in  the  name  of  John"  by 
some  pupil  of  his — perhaps  by  some  namesake— and 
revised  and  issued  in  the  name  of  John  by  the  Elders  of 
the  Ephesian  Church,  is  by  no  means  improbable.  In 
some  matters  of  fact,  for  example  in  distinguishing  between 
the  Passover  and  "the  last  supper,"  the  Fourth  Gospel 
corrects  an  (apparent)  error  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  a 
correction  that  possibly  proceeded  from  the  Apostle 
John  ;  and  perhaps  the  solemn  asseveration  as  to  the 
issue  of  blood  and  water  from  the  side  of  Jesus  ("And 
he  that  hath  seen  hath  borne  witness,  and  his  witness  is 
true  :  and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true,  that  ye  also  may 
believe  ")  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  some  special  testimony 
from  the  aged  Apostle  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain 
how  far  emblematic  and  historical  narratives  are  blended 
in  such  passages  as  the  dialogue  with  the  Samaritan 
woman,  the  miracle  at  Cana,  and  the  raising  of  Lazarus. 
The  author  was  convinced  (like  every  other  believer,  at 
that  time)  that  Jesus  did  work  many  miracles,  and  could 
have  worked  any  kind  of  miracle  ;  but  he  had  noted  the 
unspiritual  tendency  to  magnify  the  "  mighty  works "  of 
Jesus  as  merely  "  mighty :  "  he  therefore  selected  from 
the  traditions  before  him  those  in  which  the  spiritual  and 
emblematic  meaning  was  predominant.  In  doing  this, 
he  sometimes  took  a  spiritual  metaphor  and  expanded  it 
into  a  spiritual  history.  Again,  he  had  also  noted  an 
unspiritual  tendency  to  lay  undue  stress  upon  the  exact 


1 82  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS     [Letter  16 

words  of  Jesus  ;  and  he  therefore  determined — besides 
giving  prominence  to  the  promise  of  Jesus  concerning 
His  Spirit,  which  was  to  guide  the  disciples  into  all  truth 
— to  exhibit,  in  his  Gospel,  the  spiritual  purport  of  Christ's 
doctrine  rather  than  to  repeat  each  saying  as  it  was 
actually  delivered. 

As  I  write  these  words,  with  the  pages  of  the  Gospel 
open  before  me,  my  eye  falls  upon  the  story  of  the  raising 
of  Lazarus  :  "  Jesus  said  unto  her,  I  am  the  resurrection 
and  the  life :  he  that  believeth  on  me,  though  he  die,  yet 
shall  he  live  ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  me 
shall  never  die."  Is  it  possible,  I  say  to  myself,  that 
Jesus  did  not  say  these  entrancing  words?  And  how 
often  does  the  same  question  arise  as  one  turns  over  the 
leaves :  'k  Peace  I  leave  with  you  ;  my  peace  I  give  unto 
you :  not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto  you  : "  "  Yet  a 
little  while  and  the  world  beholdeth  me  no  more ;  but  ye 
behold  me  :  because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also."  Could  any 
one  at  any  time  have  invented  such  sayings  ?  Still  less, 
is  it  possible  they  could  have  been  invented  in  the  times 
of  Trajan  or  Hadrian  by  any  Asiatic  Greek  or  Alexandrian 
Jew  ?  But  truth  compels  me  to  answer  that,  just  as  the 
Asiatic  Jew  St.  Paul,  although  he  never  saw  or  heard 
Jesus,  was  inspired  by  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  to  utter  words 
of  spiritual  truth  and  beauty  worthy  of  Jesus  Himself,  so 
an  Asiatic  Greek  or  Alexandrian  Jew  of  the  time  of  Trajan 
may  have  been  prompted  by  the  same  Spirit  to  penetrate 
to  the  very  depths  of  the  meaning  of  Jesus  and  to  express 
some  of  the  conclusions  to  be  derived  from  His  sayings 
more  clearly  than  we  can  see  them  even  in  the  words  of 
Jesus  Himself,  as  they  are  recorded  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels.  I  do  not  see  on  what  principle  we  can  so  limit 
the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  to  say  it  could  not 
extend,  in  its  most  perfect  force,  beyond  the  age  of 
Domitian  or  Nerva  or  even  Trajan.     Having  before  me 


Letter  16]    THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  183 

the  doctrine  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  I  am  forbidden  by 
mere  considerations  of  style  and  literary  criticism  from 
believing  that  Jesus  used  the  exact  words,  "  I  am  the  true 
vine,"  "  I  am  the  good  shepherd,"  "  I  am  the  light  of 
the  world,"  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life  ; "  but  I 
accept  these  sayings  as  divinely  inspired,  and  as  being 
far  deeper  and  fuller  expressions  of  the  spiritual  nature  of 
Jesus  than  any  of  the  inferences  which  I  could  draw  for 
myself  from  the  Synoptic  doctrine.  Do  not  then  say 
that  I  "  reject "  the  Fourth  Gospel.  I  accept  all  that  is 
essential  in  it ;  and  this  I  accept  on  far  safer  grounds  than 
many  who"  would  accuse  me  of  rejecting  it.  For  their 
acceptance  might  be  shaken  to-morrow  if  some  new 
piece  of  evidence  appeared  decisively  shewing  that  the 
Gospel  was  not  written  by  John  the  Apostle  ;  but  my 
acceptance  is  independent  of  authorship,  and  is  based 
upon  the  testimony  of  my  conscience. 

Surely  you  must  feel  that  it  would  be  absurd  for  one  who 
tests  religious  doctrine  to  some  extent  by  experience  and 
by  history,  to  reject  the  Fourth  Gospel  because  it  is  in  a 
great  measure  emblematic,  and  because  it  was  not  written 
by  the  man  who  was  supposed  to  have  written  it.  Be  the 
author  who  he  may,  I  shall  never  cease  to  feel  grateful  to 
him.  The  all-embracing  sweep  of  view  which  enabled 
him  to  look  on  the  Incarnation  as  the  central  incident  of 
the  world's  history  and  to  set  forth  Christ  as  the  Eternal 
Word  and  Eternal  Son,  not  dependent  for  this  claim 
upon  a  mere  Miraculous  Conception  ;  the  spiritual  con- 
tempt for  mere  "mighty  works,"  which  leads  him  re- 
peatedly to  claim  faith  for  Jesus  Himself  firstly,  and  for 
the  "words"  of  Jesus  secondly,  and  only  as  a  last  reserve 
to  demand  belief  "  for  the  works'  sake  ; "  and  the  true 
intuition  with  which  he  fastens  on  the  promise  of  Jesus 
(only  hinted  at  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels)  that  He  would 
be  present  with  His  disciples  at  every  time  and  place  and 


1 84  THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [Letter  16 

that  He  would  give  them  "  a  voice,"  and  a  Spirit  not  to  be 
gainsaid — from  which  brief  suggestion  the  author  worked 
out  in  detail  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  predicted 
the  nobler  and  ampler  future  of  the  Church — these  true, 
and  profound,  and  spiritual  intuitions  will  always  excite 
my  deepest  gratitude  and  admiration.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Eternal  Word  had  its  origin  perhaps  in  the  schools  of 
Alexandria,  and  certainly  formed  no  part  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  ;  but,  Christianized  as  it  is  by  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  it  commends  itself  as  a  key  to  many 
mysteries,  and  (like  the  Fourth  Gospel  itself)  it  appears 
to  be  but  one  among  many  illustrations  of  the  divine 
development  of  Christian  doctrine  :  "  I  have  yet  many 
things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now. 
Howbeit  when  he,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  is  come,  he  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth."  In  a  word,  without  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  Christendom  might  (it  would  seem)  have  failed 
for  ever  to  appreciate  the  true  nature  of  its  Redeemer. 

I  cannot  indeed  repress  some  regret  that  this  most 
marvellously  endowed  minister  and  prophet  of  Christ 
should  have  been  allowed  to  select  a  poetic  and  even  illu- 
sive form  in  order  to  publish  his  divine  truths.  Hitherto 
I  have  been  able,  with  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  see 
the  illusive  integument  being  gradually  separated  from 
the  inner  truth,  as  in  astronomy  and  in  the  history  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Now  comes  a  point  where  I  myself 
should  like  to  recoil.  But  how  puerile  and  faithless 
should  I  be  if  I  assumed  that  God  would  give  to  the 
world  along  with  His  divine  revelation  precisely  that 
modicum  of  illusion  (and  no  more)  which  I  myself  per- 
sonally am  just  able  to  receive  with  pleasure  !  Let  us 
rather  follow  where,  as  Plato  says,  "  the  argument  leads 
us."  Or,  if  you  prefer  me  to  quote  from  the  Fourth 
Gospel  itself,  let  us  follow  the  guidance  of  Him  who  is 
both  "  the  Way  and  the  Truth." 


CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  185 


XVII 

My  dear , 

Once  more  I  am  compelled  to  digress :  and,  this 
time,  it  isvin  order  to  meet  what  you  must  let  me  call  a 
preconception  of  yours.  You  say  that  it  appears  to  you 
"  impossible  that  Christ,  if  really  divine,  should  have 
been  permitted  by  God  to  be  worshipped  as  a  worker 
of  miracles  for  eighteen  centuries,  although  in  reality  he 
had  no  power  to  work  them." 

Is  this  much  more  than  a  repetition  of  your  former 
objection  that  my  views  amount  to  "  a  new  religion,"  and 
that  illusion,  although  it  may  abound  in  the  history  of  the 
thoughts  of  mankind,  can  never  have  been  permitted  to 
connect  itself  with  a  really  divine  revelation?  I  have 
already  in  part  answered  these  prejudices— for  they  are 
nothing  more— by  shewing  that  illusion  permeates  what  is 
called  "natural  religion,"  and  by  subsequently  shewing 
that  the  inspired  books  of  the  Old  Testament  exhibit 
illusions  in  every  page  ;  not  only  the  illusions  of  the  chosen 
people,  but  illusions  also  on  the  part  of  the  authors  of  the 
several  books,  who  misinterpreted  tradition  so  as  to  con- 
vert a  non-miraculous  into  a  miraculous  history.  But  now 
let  us  deal  more  particularly  with  Christian  illusions. 
Here  I  will  try  to  shew  you,  first,  how  natural  and 
(humanly  speaking)  how  inevitable  it  was  that  illusions 
should  gather  round  the  earliest  Christian  traditions,  and 
how  easily  there  might  have  sprung  up  miraculous  ac- 
counts in  connection  with  them.     Then,  and  not  till  then, 


1 86  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

having  done  my  best  to  dispel  your  natural  prejudice,  I 
will  take  in  detail  the  six  or  seven  principal  miracles  attri- 
buted to  Christ  by  all  the  three  Synoptic  Evangelists,  and 
will  endeavour  to  shew  you  that  these  accounts  did  actually 
spring  up  in  a  natural  and  inevitable  way,  after  the  manner 
of  illusions,  without  any  attempt  to  deceive  on  the  part  of 
the  compilers  of  the  Gospels.  It  will  appear,  I  think,  that 
the  life  and  doctrine  of  Christ  are  independent  of  these 
miracles  and  can  easily  be  separated  from  them. 

For  the  present  then  I  am  to  speak  of  the  naturalness 
or  inevitability  of  illusions  gathering  about  Christ's  acts 
and  words  in  the  minds  of  His  disciples.  Does  any  student 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  need  to  be  convinced  of  this  ? 
Perhaps  the  author  of  that  work  discerned  the  illusions  of 
the  early  Church  even  too  clearly,  so  that  he  slightly 
overshot  the  mark  in  the  frequency  of  the  false  inferences 
and  misunderstandings  with  whichhe  delightsto  encompass 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Jesus.  Perhaps  the  composer  of 
''the  Spiritual  Gospel"  has  been  led  even  too  far  by  his  pro- 
found and  true  perception  that  this  Incarnate  Word — this 
Being  from  another  sphere  who  was  and  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father — could  not  move  on  the  earth,  among  earthly 
creatures,  without  being  perpetually  misunderstood  by  them. 
But  is  there  not  manifest  truth  in  his  conception  of  Jesus 
as  of  One  having  different  thoughts  from  those  of  common 
men,  different  ways  of  regarding  all  things  small  or  great, 
a  spiritual  dialect  of  His  own,  not  at  once  to  be  compre- 
hended by  ordinary  beings  ?  Certain  it  is  that,  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  Christ's  discourses  are  one  string  of  metaphors 
which  are  literally  and  falsely  interpreted  by  those  to  whom 
they  are  addressed.  "  Flesh,"  "  blood,"  "  water,"  "  sleep," 
"birth,"  "death,"  "life,"  "temple,"  "bread,"  "meat," 
"  light,"  "  night,"  "  way,"— these  and  I  know  not  how  many 
more  simple  words  present  themselves,  as  we  rapidly  turn 
over  the  pages  of  that  Gospel,  always  metaphorically  used, 


Letter  ifi  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  187 

and  always  misunderstood.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  they 
were  misunderstood  by  enemies  and  unbelievers  alone  ; 
His  disciples  constantly  misunderstood  them.  The  life  of 
Christ  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  one  continuous  misunder- 
standing. I  will  not  say  that  this  represents  the  exact 
fact ;  but  I  doubt  not  that  the  inspired  insight  of  the 
author,  be  he  who  he  may,  took  in  the  full  meaning  of  all 
the  hints  that  are  given  by  the  Synoptists  as  to  the  mis- 
understanding of  the  disciples  about  their  Master,  and  led 
him  to  the  deliberate  conclusion  that  the  life  of  Christ  in 
the  flesh  ,was  one  perpetual  source  of  illusions  to  the 
Twelve — illusions  through  which,  by  the  guidance  of  the 
Spirit,  they  were  to  be  led  to  the  truth  :  "  What  I  do  ye 
know  not  now,  but  ye  shall  know  hereafter."  I  believe  he 
went  even  further  and  perceived  that  Christ's  life  was  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  total  delusion  to  the  earliest 
Christians  through  their  tendency  to  the  materialistic  and 
the  miraculous,  and  that  the  best  means  of  preserving  the 
Church  from  such  a  danger  was  to  accustom  the  faithful 
to  attach  value  to  the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ  only  so 
far  as  they  could  interpret  them  spiritually,  trusting  to  the 
Spirit  for  continual  guidance  into  new  truth. 

This  then  is  my  first  proposition,  that  Christ  was  sure 
to  be  misunderstood  by  those  around  Him,  owing  to  His 
manner  of  using  the  language  of  metaphor.  You  must 
know  very  well  that  this  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  fact. 
Sometimes  the  Synoptists  note  the  fact,  as  when  He  spoke 
of  "leaven  "  and  the  Twelve  misunderstood  Him  literally  ; 
and  several  other  instances  are  on  record.  But  it  is  of 
course  possible  that  on  many  other  occasions  the  mis- 
understanding may  have  existed,  but  may  not  have  been 
noted  by  the  Evangelists.  Take  one  instance.  In  the 
discourse  of  Jesus  to  the  Seventy  Disciples  (Luke  x.  19) 
Jesus  makes  the  following  statement :  "  I  have  given  you 
authority  to  tread  upon  serpents  and  scorpioiis  and  over 


1 88  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  {Letter  17 

all  the  power  of  the  enemy,  and  nothing  shall  in  any  wise 
hurt  (ddiKrjaei)  you."  How  are  we  to  understand  this 
"  treading  upon  serpents  and  scorpio?is "  ?  Literally  or 
metaphorically  ?  Surely  the  text  itself  makes  it  evident 
that  Jesus  used  the  words  metaphorically  to  refer  to  "  the 
power  of  the  Enemy,"  i.e.  "the  Serpent/'  or  Satan,  pro- 
bably with  a  special  reference  to  the  casting  out  of  devils. 
Moreover  the  passage  is  introduced  by  a  statement  that 
"  the  Seventy  returned  with  joy,  saying,  Lord,  even  the 
devils  are  subject  unto  us  in  thy  name.  And  he  said,  I 
beheld  Satan  fall  as  lightning  from  Heaven.  Behold  I  have 

given  you  authority  to  tread  upon  serpents Howbeit  in 

this  ?-ejoice  not  that  the  spirits  are  stibject  unto  you ;  but 
rejoice  that  your  names  are  written  in  Heaven."  As  for 
the  other  part  of  the  promise,  "  nothing  shall  hurt  you,"  it 
surely  does  not  seem  to  you  that  these  words  must  imply 
literal  "  hurt "  ?  If  it  does,  let  me  direct  your  attention  to  a 
much  more  striking  instance  of  Christ's  extraordinary  use  of 
metaphor  in  a  passage  where  the  Disciples  are  told,  almost 
in  a  breath,  that  not  a  hair  of  their  heads  shall  perish  and 
yet  that  some  of  them  shall  be  "put  to  death"  (Luke  xxi. 
16-18).  I  think  then  that  you  will  agree  with  me  that  the 
"  authority  to  tread  upon  serpents  "  mentioned  in  St.  Luke 
contained  not  a  literal,  but  a  spiritual  promise,  to  tread 
upon  the  power  of  "  the  Serpent."  Nevertheless,  that  this 
promise  about  "  serpents"  was  very  early  misinterpreted 
literally  can  be  shewn,  not  indeed  from  a  genuine  passage 
of  the  Gospels,  but  from  a  very  early  interpolation  in  St. 
Mark's  Gospel,  xvi.  17,  18  :  "  These  signs  shall  follow  them 
that  believe  ;  in  my  name  shall  they  cast  out  devils  ;  they 
shall  speak  with  new  tongues  ;  they  shall  take  up  serpents, 
and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it  shall  in  no  wise  hurt 
them  ;  they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall 
recover." 

Here  then  we  have  a  clear  instance  of  misunderstanding 


Letter  17]  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  189 

(not  noted  by  the  Evangelists)  arising  in  very  early  if  not 
in  the  very  earliest  times  from  the  metaphorical  language 
of  Jesus.  One  more  instance  of  probable  misunderstanding 
must  suffice  for  the  present.  You  know  how  often  in  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul  the  word  "  dead  "  is  used  to  indicate 
spiritually  "  dead  "  i.e.  "  dead  in  sin."  A  similar  use  is 
attributed  to  Christ  in  the  Fourth  Gospel :  "  He  that 
believeth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live  " 
(John  xi.  25);  but  here  the  impending  resurrection  of 
Lazarus  gives  the  reader  the  impression  that  it  is  literally 
used.  However  it  is  almost  certainly  metaphorical  in 
John  v.  24,  25,  28,  "  He  that  heareth  my  word  and  be- 
lieveth him  that  sent  me,  hath  eternal  life,  and  cometh  not 
unto  judgment,  but  is  passed  from  death  mto  life.  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you,  the  hour  cometh  and  now  is,  when 
the  dead  shall  hear  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  they 
that  hear  shall  live.  .  .  .  Marvel  not  at  this,  for  the  hour 
cometh  in  which  all  that  are  in  the  tombs  shall  hear  his 
voice,  and  shall  come  forth"  &c.  Here  apparently  the 
meaning  is  that  the  hour  has  already  come  ("  now  is  ") 
when  the  spiritually  dead  shall  hear  the  voice,  and  the  hour 
is  on  the  point  of  coming  when  the  literally  dead  ("  all  that 
are  in  the  tombs")  shall  hear  it.  In  any  case,  the  meta- 
phorical meaning  is  indisputable  in  the  striking  saying 
of  Jesus  (Luke  ix.  60)  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead." 

Now  if  Jesus  was  in  the  habit  of  describing  those  who 
were  lost  in  sin  as  being  "dead,"  and  of  bidding  His 
disciples  "raise  the  dead" — meaning  that  they  were  to 
restore  sinners  to  spiritual  life— we  can  easily  see  how 
such  language  might  be  misunderstood.  It  is  probable 
that  Jesus  Himself  had  actually  restored  life  to  at  least 
one  person  given  over  for  dead,  the  daughter  of  Jairus, 
though  by  natural  means.  Of  such  revivification  you 
may  find  an  instance  described  in  Onesimus  (pp.  77 — 81) 
which  is  taken  almost  verbatim  from  the  account  of  his  own 


190   -  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

revivification  given  by  the  late  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux  to 
the  late  Dean  Stanley,  and  sent  me  by  the  Dean  as 
being  taken  down  from  the  Archbishop's  lips.  If  that  was 
so,  how  natural  for  some  of  the  Disciples  to  attach  a 
literal  meaning  to  the  precept,  "  raise  the  dead  "  !  They 
would  argue  thus,  "  Our  Master  healed  diseases  at  a  word, 
so  can  we  ;  He  once  raised  a  child  from  the  dead  and 
bade  us  also  raise  the  dead  ;  some  of  the  Disciples  there- 
fore ought  to  be  able  to  do  this."  How  natural,  under 
the  circumstances,  such  a  confusion  of  the  material  and 
the  spiritual !  Yet  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  diseases 
which  were  cured  by  the  Twelve  were  almost  always 
"possession,"  or  paralysis,  or  nervous  diseases.  Compare 
the  different'  accounts  given  by  the  Synoptists  of  the 
instructions  of  Jesus  to  the  Twelve  when  He  sent  them 
forth  on  their  first  mission  : 

Mark  vi.  7.  Matthew  x.  1.  Luke  be.  1. 

And  he  called  unto  him  And  he  called  unto  him  And  he  called  the 

the  twelve,  and  began  to  his    twelve    disciples   and  twelve  together  and 

send  them  forth   by  two  gave  them  authority  over  gave    them    power 

and   two ;     and   he   gave  unclean    spirits    to     cast  and  authority  over 

them  authority  over  the  them  out,  and  to  heal  all  all    devils    and    to 

unclean  spirits.  manner  of  disease  and  all  cure  diseases, 
manner  of  sickness. 

Here  you  find  that  the  first  Gospel  (St.  Mark's)  makes 
mention  only  of  the  "  authority  over  unclean  spirits,"  and 
this  probably  represents  the  fact.  The  third  account  is 
an  amplification  ;  and  the  second  altogether  exaggerates. 
Hence,  when  we  read,  in  the  context  of  the  second  version 
of  these  instructions,  "  Heal  the  sick,  raise  the  dead, 
cleanse  the  lepers,  cast  out  devils  ;  freely  ye  received 
freely  give  "  (Matthew  x.  8),  we  cannot  fail  to  see  several 
arguments  against  the  probability  of  the  italicized  words 
being  literally  intended  by  Jesus.  First,  the  language  of 
Christ  habitually  dealt  in  metaphor,  and  in  metaphor 
habitually  misunderstood  by  His  disciples;  secondly,  there 


Letter  JJ]  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  191 

is  no  instance  in  which  a  single  one  of  the  Twelve  carried 
out  this  precept  during  the  life  of  their  Master,  and  only 
one  in  which  one  of  the  Twelve  (Peter)  is  said  to  have  raised 
a  woman  from  the  dead  (for  St.  Paul's  incident  with 
Eutychus  can  hardly  be  called  a  case  in  point)  ;  thirdly 
the  precept  is  recorded  by  only  one  Evangelist ; 1  fourthly 
that  same  Evangelist  records  only  one  case  in  which  our 
Lord  Himself  raised  any  one  from  the  dead,  i.e.  the 
revivified  daughter  of  J  aims— and  it  seems  absurd  to 
represent  Christ  as  commanding  all  the  Apostles  to  do 
that  which  most  of  them  probably  never  did,  and  He 
Himself  (according  to  the  First  Gospel)  only  did  once. 

We  pass  now  to  another  cause  that  may  have  originated 
miraculous  narratives  in  the  Gospels.  Try  to  extricate 
yourself  from  our  Western,  cold-blooded,  analytical,  and 
critical  way  of  looking  at  things.  Sit  down  in  the  reign 
of  Vespasian  or  Domitian  in  the  midst  of  a  congrega- 
tion of  Jewish  and  Graeco-Oriental  brethren,  assembled 
for  a  sacred  service,  "  singing  a  hymn  "  (as  Pliny  says, 
describing  them  a  few  years  afterwards)  "  to  Christ  as  to 
a  God."  What  effect  on  the  traditions  of  Christ's  life  and 
works  would  be  produced  by  these  "  hymns  and  spiritual 
songs"  which  St.  Paul's  testimony  (as  well  as  Pliny's) 
shews  to  have  been  a  common  part  of  the  earliest 
Christian  ritual?  Would  they  not  inevitably  tend,  by 
poetic  hyperbole  and  metaphor,  to  build  up  fresh  tradi- 
tions which,  when  literally  interpreted,  would — like  the 
songs  and  psalms  of  the  Chosen  People— give  rise  to 
miraculous  narratives  ?  Part  of  the  service  indeed  would 
not  consist  of  hymns  but  of  the  reading  of  the  "  Scriptures  " 
i.e.  the  Old  Testament  ;  but  this  also  would  tend  in  the 
same  direction.     For  there  you  would  hear,  read  out  to 

1  Of  course  its  omission  by  the  other  Evangelists  might  indicate  that  the 
words  were  not  uttered  by  Jesus ;  but  it  might  also  indicate  that  the  precept, 
being  generally  misunderstood,  was  considered  so  strange  and  at  variance 
with  facts  that  it  had  come  to  be  discredited  and  considered  spurious. 


192  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

the  congregation,  marvellous  prophecies  how,  in  the  day 
of  the  Lord  the  Redeemer,  the  eyes  of  the  blind  should  be 
opened  and  the  ears  of  the  deaf  unstopped,  and  the  lame 
should  leap  as  a  hart ;  and  the  sole  thought  possessing 
you  and  every  man  in  the  congregation  would  be,  "  How 
far  did  all  these  things  find  fulfilment  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  ?  "     You  would  hear  from  the  "  Scriptures  "  narra- 
tives of  marvellous  miracles,  how  Moses  gave  water  from 
the  rock  to  Israel  in  the  wilderness  and  fed  them  with 
food  from  heaven,  how  Elijah  raised  the  widow's  child 
from  death,  and  how  Jonah  spent  three  days  in  the  belly 
of  the  fish  ;  and  the  sole  thought  possessing  you  would  be, 
"  How  far  were  like  wonders  wrought  by  Christ  ?  "     Then 
would  arise  the  hymn  describing,  in  imagery  borrowed 
from  the  Old  Testament,  how  Christ  had  done  all  these 
things,  and  more  besides,  for  the  spiritual  Israel ;  how  He 
had  spread  a  table  for  His  people  in  the  wilderness,  and 
given  to  thousands  to  partake  of  His  body  and  His  blood  ; 
how  Moses  had  merely  given  water  to  the  people,  but 
Jesus  had  changed  the  water  of  the  Jews   [i.e.  the  Law) 
into  the  wine  which  flowed  from  His  side  ;  how  Jesus  had 
fulfilled  the  predictions  of  the  prophets  by  curing  the  halt, 
the  maimed,  the  blind,  the  leper,  the  deaf;  how  He  had 
even  raised  the  dead  and  bidden  His  disciples  to  raise  the 
dead  ;  how  He,  like  Jonah,  had  spent  three  days  in  the 
darkness   of    the   grave.       If    you   look   at    the   earliest 
Christian   paintings   you   will    find   that    they   represent 
Christ  as  the  Fish  (the  emblem  of  food)  ;  others  depict  the 
Mosaic  miracles  of  the  manna  and  the  water  from  the 
rock.     These  shew  what  a  hold  the  notion  of  the  mira- 
culous food  had  taken  on  the  mind  of  the  earliest  believers. 
How  easy  it  would  be  to  amplify  a  metaphor  derived  from 
the  Eucharistic  feeding  on  the  Bread  of  Life  and  perhaps 
on  the  "  honey-sweet  fish  "  (as  Christ  is  actually  called  in  a 
poem  written  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century) 


Letter  \j\  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  193 

into  a  miraculous  account  of  the  feeding  of  many 
thousands  upon  material  bread  and  material  fish  !  It  is 
greatly  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  not  one  left  out  of 
the  many  hymns  and  psalms  of  which  St.  Paul  and  Pliny 
make  mention.  The  only  vestige  of  one  that  I  know  is 
found  in  a  verse  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 
It  is  at  all  events  printed  by  Westcott  and  Hort  as  poetry, 
and  it  is  thought  by  many  commentators  to  be  an  extract 
from  some  well-known  hymn  (Eph.  v.  14)  : 

"Wherefore  (he)  saith, 
*  Awake  thou  that  sleepest 

And  arise  from  the  dead 

And  Christ  shall  shine  upon  thee." 

This  perhaps  is  our  only  specimen  of  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian hymnals.  Surely  then  it  is  noticeable  that  in  three 
lines  of  this  unique  specimen  there  are  three  metaphors, 
and  in  the  second  line  a  metaphorical  use  of  the 
word  "  dead  "  which  —  as  I  have  pointed  out  above — 
has  probably  elsewhere  resulted  in  serious  misunder- 
standing. 

After  the  hymn  would  come  the  sermon.  The  preacher 
would  stand  up  like  Apollos  to  "prove  from  the  Scriptures," 
that  is,  from  the  Old  Testament,  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ. 
If  you  wish  to  know  how  some  of  the  Christian  Preachers 
would  probably  discharge  their  task  you  should  look  at 
the  Dialogue  with  Trypho  written  (about  a  hundred  years 
after  Apollos)  by  Justin  Martyr — who,  I  take  it,  was  very 
much  superior  in  judgment,  learning,  and  ability,  to  the 
great  mass  of  Christian  Preachers  in  the  first  and  second 
centuries.  There — among  many  other  instances  of  the 
adaptation  of  history  to  preconception — you  will  find  Justin 
declaring  that  Jesus  was  born  in  a  cave,  and  that  the  ass  on 
which  He  rode  into  Jerusalem  was  tied  to  a  vine,  simply 
because  certain  prophecies  of  Isaiah  mention  a  cave  and  a 
vine,  and  because  he  is  determined  to  find  fulfilments  of 

O 


i94  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

them  in  the  life  of  Christ.  But  in  the  early  times  of  Apollos, 
and  during  the  next  twenty  or  thirty  years,  before  the 
Gospels  had  been  committed  to  writing,  there  must  have 
been  a  far  stronger  gravitation  towards  the  Old  Testament 
and  a  far  more  powerful  tendency  to  find  something  in 
the  life  of  Christ  to  fulfil  every  prediction  about  the 
Messiah  and  to  correspond  to  every  miracle  wrought  by 
Moses  and  the  prophets.  Judged  in  the  light  of  these 
considerations,  our  present  record  of  Christ's  life  ought 
to  surprise  us  not  by  the  number,  but  by  the  paucity,  of 
the  fulfilments  of  prophecy  and  the  miracles  contained 
in  them. 

Against  these  arguments  for  the  antecedent  probability 
that  miracles  would  be  baselessly  imputed  to  Jesus  (to  be 
followed  presently  by  a  few  instances  to  shew  that  they 
have  been  so  imputed)  I  know  nothing  that  has  been  re- 
cently urged  except  a  consideration  drawn  from  the  life  of 
John  the  Baptist  :  "  To  the  Baptist  no  miracle  has  been 
imputed  by  the  Gospels  ;  to  Christ  miracles  have  been 
imputed  ;  why  not  to  both  ?  What  is  the  reason  for  this 
distinction  except  that  the  former  did  not  perform 
miracles,  while  the  latter  did  ? "  Two  reasons  can  be 
given.  In  the  first  place  Christ  worked  "  mighty  works/' 
while  John  did  not  ;  and  since  many  of  these  "mighty 
works  "  could  not  in  the  first  century  be  distinguished  from 
"miracles,"  they  served  as  a  nucleus  round  which  a 
miraculous  narrative  might  gather  ;  in  the  history  of  the 
Baptist  there  would  be  no  such  nucleus.  The  second  and 
perhaps  more  important  reason  is,  that,  as  a  counter- 
poise to  the  natural  exaggerative  tendency  which  might 
have  led  men  to  attribute  miracles  to  the  Baptist,  there 
would  be  also  a  tendency  to  heighten  the  contrast  between 
the  Servant  and  the  Master.  This  tendency  appears  to 
me  to  increase  in  the  later  Gospels  till  at  last  in  the  Fourth 
we  come  to  the   express  statement,   "John  worked  no 


Letter  17]  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  195 

miracle"  (John  x.  41).  But  whether  I  am  right  or  not  in 
this  conjecture,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  attitude  of  the 
Christians  towards  the  mere  forerunner  of  the  Messiah — 
about  whom  the  Prophets  had  simply  predicted  that  he 
would  "  turn  the  hearts  of  the  children  to  the  fathers  " — 
would  not  be  such  as  to  render  likely  any  imputations  of 
miracles  to  him.  At  Ephesus,  in  the  days  of  St.  Paul, 
there  were  some  quasi-Christians  who  had  received  none 
but  "John's  Baptism,"  and  had  "not  so  much  as  heard 
whether  there  is  a  Holy  Ghost."  That  gives  us  a  much 
stronger  impression  of  the  Prophet's  influence,  and  a 
much  weaker  impression  of  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine 
about  the  "Holy  Spirit  in  the  earliest  Christian  teaching, 
than  we  should  have  inferred  from  what  we  read  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel :  was  it  likely,  when  the  Baptist's  influence 
seemed  to  the  contemporaries  of  St.  Paul  still  so  powerful 
(perhaps  too  powerful)  that  they  would  be  tempted 
unconsciously  to  magnify  it  by  casting  round  him  that 
halo  of  miraculous  action  which  naturally  gathered  around 
the  life  of  Christ  ? 

Does  it  seem  to  you  very  hard,  and  almost  cruelly  un- 
natural, that  the  life  of  the  Baptist — in  whom  the  world 
takes  comparatively  little  interest — should  be  handed 
down  with  historical  accuracy  (at  least  so  far  as  miracles 
are  concerned)  while  the  life  of  Christ,  the  centre  of  the 
hopes  and  fears  of  the  civilized  world,  has  been  permitted 
by  Providence  to  become  a  nucleus  for  illusion  and  super- 
stition as  well  as  for  the  righteous  faith  and  love  of 
mankind  ?     It  is  hard  ;   it  is  not  unnatural. 

"  When  beggars  die  there  are  no  comets  seen  ; 
The  heavens  themselves  blaze  forth  the  death  of  princes." 

What  does  Shakespeare  mean  by  this  except  to  exem- 
plify the  universal,  and  natural,  but  illusive  belief,  that 
whatever  affects  the  greatest  man  must  also  affect  material 

o  2 


196  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  \Letter  17 

nature  ?  Therefore  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of  any 
man  we  must  expect  that  the  illusions  about  him  will  be 
great  in  the  minds  of  posterity.  How  indeed  could  it  be 
otherwise  ?  Reflect  for  a  moment.  Jesus  came  into  the 
world  to  be  a  spiritual  Saviour,  a  spiritual  Judge  ;  but  how 
few  there  were  in  those  days  who  could  fully  appreciate 
even  the  meaning  of  these  titles  !  Do  you  yourself,  even 
at  this  date,  after  the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries,  grasp 
firmly  this  notion  of  spiritual  judgment  ?  Reverence  can 
hardly  restrain  you  from  smiling  at  the  Apostles  for  their 
unspiritual  dreams  of  a  "  carnal "  empire  with  twelve 
tangible  thrones  to  be  set  up  for  their  twelve  selves  in 
Palestine  ;  but  you  yourself,  have  you  never,  at  all  events 
in  younger  days,  dreamed  sometimes  of  a  visible  white 
throne  on  material  clouds,  of  a  visible  and  perhaps 
tangible  trumpet,  of  an  audible  verdict  of  "  Guilty "  or 
"  Not  guilty  "  externally  pronounced  on  each  soul  ?  per- 
haps also  of  palpable  palm  branches,  and  of  I  know  not 
what  more  sensuous  apparatus,  without  which  you  can 
scarcely  realize  the  notion  of  the  Day  of  Judgment?  And  yet 
all  these  are  adventitious  and  accidental  accompaniments 
of  the  real  and  essential  "judgment  " — which  is  in  Greek 
the  "  sifting  "  or  "  division  "  i.e.  the  division  between  good 
and  evil  in  the  heart  of  each  one  of  us.  But  I  doubt  even 
now  whether  you  understand  the  meaning  of  this  spiritual 
"  division  "  or  judgment.  Let  me  try  to  explain  it.  Have 
you  not  at  any  time  suddenly,  in  a  flash,  been  brought  face 
to  face  with  some  revelation  of  goodness — some  good 
person,  or  action,  or  book,  or  word,  or  thought — which  in 
a  moment,  before  you  were  aware,  has  lighted  up  all  the 
black  caverns  of  your  nature  and  made  your  mind's  eye 
realize  them,  and  your  conscience  abhor  them,  setting  your 
higher  nature  against  your  lower  nature,  so  that,  without 
your  knowing  it,  this  angelic  visitant  has  taken  hold  of 
you,  carried  away  the  better  part  of  you  along  with  itself 


Letter  17]  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  197 

into  higher  regions  of  purer  thought  than  yours,  from 
whence  your  better  nature  is  forced  to  look  down  upon, 
and  condemn,  your  lower  and  grosser  self?  This  "  divi- 
sion" is  the  operation  of  the  two-edged  sword  of  the 
Spirit  ;  and  when  a  man's  cheeks  flush  with  shame,  or  his 
heart  feels  crushed  with  remorse,  under  this  "dividing" 
power,  and  he  feels  the  verdict  "  I  am  guilty,  "  then  he  is 
being  judged  far  more  effectually  than  any  earthly  law 
court  could  judge  him.  Now  it  is  this  kind  of  judgment 
that  Jesus  had  in  mind  when  He  spoke  of  the  judgment 
of  the  world  by  the  Son  of  Man.  In  this  sense  He  has 
been  judging,  is  judging,  and  will  judge,  till  the  Great 
Judgment  consummates  the  story  of  such  things  as  are  to 
be  judged.     But  how  little  has  the  world  realized  this  ! 

Probably  some  would  have  realized  less  of  the  spiritual  if 
they  had  imagined  less  of  the  material.  You  know  how 
the  English  judges  of  our  times  still  insist  on  much  of  the 
old  pomp  and  ceremony  which  in  the  days  of  our  fore- 
fathers was  thought  necessary  in  order  to  make  justice 
venerable.  The  trumpets,  and  the  javelin-men,  and  the 
sheriffs  in  the  procession,  the  wig  and  gown  and  bands 
in  court — they  all  seem  a  little  ridiculous  to  most  of  us 
now  ;  yet  possibly  the  judges  are  right  in  retaining  them. 
Possibly  our  brutal  English  nature  will  need  for  some 
decades  longer  these  antique  and  now  meaningless 
trappings  before  they  will  be  able  to  respect  the  just  judge 
for  the  sake  of  justice  itself.  And  in  the  same  way,  from 
the  days  of  Clovis  to  those  of  Napoleon,  many  a  man 
who  would  have  found  it  impossible  to  realize  the  righteous 
Judge  as  the  invisible  wielder  of  the  two-edged  sword  of 
the  Spirit,  has  felt  a  fear,  which  perhaps  did  more  good 
than  harm,  at  the  thought  of  the  opening  graves,  the 
unclothed  trembling  dead,  the  thunder-pealing  verdict 
and  the  flames  of  a  material  hell.  Who  also  can  deny 
that  the  illusion  which  has  represented  Jesus  as  having 


ig3  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

possessed  and  exerted  the  power  to  cure  every  imaginable 
disease  of  the  body,  has  led  many  to  realize  Him  as  the 
Healer  of  something  more  than  material  disease,  in  a 
manner  otherwise  impossible  for  masses  of  men  living 
under  an  oppression  which  often  scarcely  left  them  the 
consciousness  that  they  possessed  anything  but  bodies 
wherewith  to  serve  their  masters  ? 

Uo  not  suppose,  because  I  am  forced  by  evidence,  to 
reject  the  miracles,  that  I  am  blind  to  the  part  that  they 
once  played  in  facilitating  faith  in  Christ.  A  whole  essay, 
a  volume  of  essays  might  be  written  on  that  subject,  with- 
out fear  of  exaggeration.  The  Miraculous  Conception, 
the  Miraculous  Resurrection  and  Ascension,  the  miracles 
of  the  feeding  of  the  four  thousand  and  of  the  five  thousand, 
— it  would  be  quite  possible  to  shew  from  Christian 
literature  and  history,  how  in  times  gone  by,  when  laws 
of  nature  were  unrecognized,  these  supposed  incidents  of 
Christ's  life  not  only  found  their  way  into  men's  minds 
without  hesitation  and  without  a  strain  upon  intellect  or 
conscience,  but  also  conveyed  to  the  human  heart,  each  in 
its  own  way,  some  deep  spiritual  truth  satisfying  some 
deep  spiritual  need.  It  is  the  old  lesson  once  more 
repeated  :  the  eyes  take  in,  as  a  picture,  what  the  ears 
fail  to  convey  to  the  brain  or  heart,  when  expressed  in 
mere  words. 

But  now,  there  are  abundant  symptoms  that  the  tempers 
and  minds  of  men  are  greatly  changed.  Men's  minds 
are  more  open  than  before  to  the  need  of  some  spiritual 
bond  to  keep  society  together  ;  and  the  character  and 
spiritual  claims  of  Christ,  and  the  marvellous  results  that 
have  followed  from  His  life  and  death,  are  beginning  (1 
think)  to  be  recognized  with  more  spontaneousness  and 
with  less  of  superstitious  formalism.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  vast  regularity  of  Nature  has  so  come  home  to  our 
hearts  that  some  believe  in  it  as  if  it  had  a  divine  sanctity  ; 


Letter  17]  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  199 

the  thought  of  praying  that  the  sun  or  moon  may  stand 
still  shocks  us  as  a  profanity  ;  and  boys  and  girls,  as 
they  stand  opposite  to  some  picture  setting  forth  a  Bible 
miracle,  look  puzzled  and  perplexed,  or,  if  they  are  a  little 
older,  say  with  a  sententious  smile  that  "the  age  of 
miracles  is  past."  In  a  word,  that  very  element  of  inex- 
plicable wonder  which  once  strengthened  the  faith,  now 
weakens  it,  by  furnishing  weapons  to  its  assailants,  and 
by  inducing  rash  believers  to  take  up  and  defend  against 
sceptics  a  position  that  is  indefensible. 

In  any  case,  it  is  the  duty  of  each  generation  of 
Christians,  to  put  aside,  as  far  as  it  can,  the  illusions  of  the 
previous  generation  and  to  rise  higher  to  the  fuller  know- 
ledge of  Christ :  for  the  outworn  and  undiscarded  illu- 
sions of  one  generation  become  the  hypocrisies  of  the 
next.  The  illusions  of  the  permanence  of  the  Mosaic 
Law,  of  the  speedy  Consummation,  of  Transubstantia- 
tion,  of  the  Infallible  Church,  of  the  Infallible  Book,  have 
all  been  in  due  course  put  away.  A  candid  and  modest 
Christian  ought  surely  to  argue  that,  where  so  many 
illusions  have  already  been  discarded — and  all  without 
injury  to  the  worship  of  Christ— some  may  remain 
to  be  discarded  still,  and  equally  without  injury  to  the 
Eternal  Truth. 

What  if  miraculous  Christianity  is  to  natural  Christianity 
as  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  is  to  the  Newtonian?  Both 
of  these  astronomical  systems  were  of  practical  utility  ; 
both  could  predict  eclipses  ;  both  revealed  God  as  a  God 
of  order.  But  the  former  imputed  to  the  unmoving  sun 
the  terrestrial  motion  which  the  latter  correctly  imputed 
to  the  earth  ;  the  former  explained  by  a  number  of  arbitrary, 
non-natural,  and  quasi-miraculous  suppositions — spheres, 
and  spirals,  and  epicycles,  and  the  like — phenomena  which 
the  latter  more  simply  explained  by  one  celestial  curve 
traced  out  in  accordance  with  one  fixed  law.    I  believe  that 


200  CHRISTIAN  ILLUSIONS  [Letter  17 

in  religion  also  we  have  made  a  similar  mistake  and  are 
being  prepared  for  a  similar  correction.  We  have  imputed 
to  Christ  some  actions  which  have  sprung  from  the 
promptings  of  our  own  imaginations — imaging  forth  what 
our  ideal  Deliverer  would  have  done — and  which  have 
represented,  not  His  motions,  but  the  motions  of  our  own 
hearts.  By  what  we  have  euphemistically  denominated 
"  latent  laws/'  that  is  to  say  by  hypotheses  as  arbitrary 
and  baseless  as  the  old  epicycles,  unsupported  by  sufficient 
evidence  and  inconsistent  with  all  that  we  see  and  hear  and 
feel  around  us  in  God's  world,  we  have  endeavoured  to 
explain  a  Redemption  which  no  more  needs  such  explana- 
tions than  forgiveness  needs  them — a  Redemption  which  is 
as  natural  (that  is  to  say,  as  much  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  physical  nature  and  the  ordinary  processes  of 
human  nature)  as  that  Law  of  Love,  or  Spiritual  gravitation, 
which  may  be  illustrated  in  the  microcosm  of  every  human 
household.  Now  we  are  to  learn  the  new  truth  :  and  as 
the  God  of  Newton  is  greater  (is  He  not  ?)  than  the  God 
of  Ptolemy,  so  let  us  not  doubt  that  the  God  revealed 
in  spiritual  Christianity  will  be  greater  than  the  God 
revealed  in  material  and  miraculous  Christianity.  The 
new  heavens  will  not  cease  to  declare  the  glory  of  God  ; 
the  new  firmament  will  not  fail  to  tell  of  His  handiwork. 


ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE  FROM  THE 
LIFE  OF  CHRIST? 


XVIII 

My  dear , 

From  the  digressions  concerning  the  growth  of  the 
Gospels  and  the  possibility  or  probability  that  their  truths 
would  be  conveyed  through  illusion  I  now  return  to  our 
main  subject,  the  question  whether  the  life  of  Christ  can 
be  disentangled  from  miracles.  And  here  you  tell  me 
that  some  of  your  agnostic  and  sceptical  friends  quote 
with  great  satisfaction  the  following  sentence  from  Bishop 
Temple's  recent  Bampton  Lectures 1  :  "  Many  of  our 
Lord's  most  characteristic  sayings  are  so  associated  with 
narratives  of  miracles  that  the  two  cannot  be  torn  apart." 
I  can  well  believe  what  you  tell  me  as  to  the  advantage 
which  they  naturally  take  of  this  admission  :  "  Here," 
they  say,  "  is  a  statement  made  on  high  authority  that, 
unless  you  can  believe  that  Jesus  worked  bond  fide  miracles, 
such  as  the  blasting  of  the  fig-tree  and  the  destruction 
of  the  swine,  you  must  give  up  '  many  of  Christ's  most 
characteristic  sayings  ' — in  other  words,  you  must  give  up 
the  hope  of  knowing  what  Jesus  taught."  I  wish  your 
friends,  who  quote  this  assertion  with  so  much  pleasure, 
would  also  have  quoted  the  "characteristic  sayings" 
alleged  by  Dr.  Temple  in  proof  of  this  assertion  ;  for 
you  would  then  have  seen  for  yourself  that  many  of 
these  "characteristic  sayings"  are  associated  not  with 
"  miracles  "  but  with  "  mighty  works  ;  "  and  I  am  sure  you 
have  not  forgotten  the  difference  between  the  two.2 

1  Page  153.  2  See  above,  p.  158. 


202      ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE     [Letler  iS 

For  example  the  first  of  the  "  characteristic  sayings  " 
is,  "  Son,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee/"'  Now  these  words 
were  spoken  to  the  paralytic  man  ;  and,  as  we  have  seen 
above,  the  cure  of  paralysis  by  appeal  to  the  emotions — 
although  a  remarkable  act,  and  although,  if  permanent, 
so  remarkable  as  to  deserve  to  be  called  "  a  mighty  work  " 
— cannot  be  called  a  miracle.  But  I  need  say  no  more 
of  this,  as  I  have  treated  of  cures  by  "emotional  shock  " 
in  a  previous  letter.  Now  all  the  other  sayings  quoted  by 
Dr.  Temple  refer  to  "  faith  "  or  "  believing  ;  "  and  all,  I 
think,  are  connected  with  acts  of  healing.  There  may  be 
doubtless  in  some  of  our  present  accounts  of  the  "  mighty 
works"  some  inaccuracies  or  exaggerations  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  disease  and  the  circumstances  of  the  cure. 
For  example,  when  the  cure  is  said  to  have  been  performed 
at  a  distance  from  the  patient,  either  (i)  faith  must  have 
wrought  in  the  patient  by  his  knowledge  that  his  friends 
were  interceding  with  Christ,  or  (2)  we  must  assume 
some  very  doubtful  theory  of  "  brain- wave  "  sympathy,  or 
admit  that  (3)  the  story  is  exaggerated,  or  else  that  (4) 
there  is  a  bond  fide  miracle.  For  my  own  part  I  waver, 
in  such  cases  as  that  of  the  centurion's  servant  and  the 
Syro-Phcenician's  daughter,  between  the  hypotheses  which 
I  have  numbered  (1)  and  (3),  with  a  sentimental  reserve 
in  favour  of  (2)  ;  but  any  one  of  these  seems  to  me  so  far 
more  probable  than  the  hypothesis  of  a  suspension  of  the 
laws  of  nature  that  I  do  not  feel  in  the  least  constrained 
by  reason  of  such  "  characteristic  sayings :'  concerning 
faith,  to  give  in  my  adhesion  to  a  narrative  of  miracle. 
On  the  contrary  I  say  the  mention  of  "faith,''  and  Christ's 
"marvel"  at  faith,  and  His  eulogy  of  the  "greatness"  of 
the  "  faith  "  in  certain  cases,  all  go  to  prove  that  these  acts 
were  not  miracles,  but  simply  acts  of  faith-healing  on  a 
colossal  scale.  I  hope  you  will  not  feel  inclined  to  sneer 
at  the  reservation  in  those  last  four  words.      You  will 


Letter  \%\       FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  ?  203 

surely  admit  that,  if  Christ  did  anything  naturally,  the 
result  might  be  proportionate  to  His  nature  ;  and  if  His 
power  of  appealing  to  the  emotions  was  colossal,  the 
material  result  of  that  appeal  might  be  proportionately 
colossal.  I  begin,  therefore,  the  process  of  disentangle- 
ment between  the  historical  and  the  miraculous  in  Christ's 
life  by  a  protest  against  a  hasty  and  blind  confusion  which 
refuses  to  discriminate  between  "  miracles"  and  "mighty 
works,"  and  calls  on  us  to  reject  from  the  history  not  only 
the  miraculous  but  the  marvellous  as  well ;  and  I  assert 
that  the  acts  of  faith-healing  with  which,  as  Bishop  Temple 
truly  says,  there  are  associated  many  of  our  Lord's  most 
characteristic  sayings,  may  be  accepted  as  generally 
historical  and  natural. 

This,  however,  would  not  apply  to  such  a  miracle  as  the 
restoration  of  the  ear  of  the  high  priest's  servant ;  and  the 
reasons  are  obvious.  The  faith  necessary  for  an  act  of 
emotional  healing  is  not  said  to  have  existed,  and  is  not 
likely  to  have  existed,  in  a  man  who  probably  looked  on 
Christ  as  an  impostor.  Even  if  it  had  existed,  the  case 
was  not  one  where  we  have  reason  to  think  faith  could 
have  healed.  Besides,  the  miracle  is  omitted  by  three  out 
of  the  four  Evangelists.  It  is  possibly  a  mistaken  infer- 
ence from  some  tradition  about  an  utterance  of  Jesus, 
"  Suffer  ye  thus  far ; "  which  may  have  really  had  an  entirely 
different  meaning,  but  which  led  the  third  Evangelist  to 
conclude  that  Jesus  desired  His  captors  to  give  Him  so 
much  liberty  as  would  allow  him  to  perform  this  act  of 
mercy— a  humane  and  picturesque  thought,  but  not  history. 
It  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  the  other  three  Evangelists 
should  have  mentioned  the  wound  inflicted  on  the  servant  ; 
that  Matthew  and  John  should  have  added  a  rebuke 
addressed  by  Jesus  to  Peter  for  inflicting  it  ;  and  that  John 
should  have  taken  the  pains  to  tell  us  the  name  of  the 
high  priest's    servant— and  yet    that   they   should    have 


204      ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE     [Letter  18 

omitted,  if  they  actually  knew,  the  fact  that  the  wound 
was  immediately  and  miraculously  healed  by  Jesus.  The 
irresistible  conclusion  is  that  St.  Mark,  St.  Matthew,  and 
St.  John,  knew  nothing  of  this  miracle. 

When  the  acts  of  healing  are  set  apart,  and  considered 
as  "  mighty  works  "  but  not  "  miracles,"  the  bond  fide 
miracles  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  will  become  few  indeed  : 
and  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  these  few  are  susceptible 
of  explanation  on  natural  grounds.  We  will  pass  over 
the  finding  of  the  coin  in  the  fish's  month — which  is  found 
in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  alone  and  can  hardly  be  asso- 
ciated with  any  "  characteristic  saying  "  of  Jesus — and 
come  to  a  miracle  common  to  the  three  Synoptists, 
the  destruction  of  two  thousand  swine  following  on  the 
exorcism  of  the  Gadarene. 

This  is  a  very  curious  case  of  misunderstanding  arising 
from  literalism.  It  was  a  common  belief  in  Palestine 
(as  it  was  also  in  Europe  during  the  middle  ages),  that 
the  bodies  of  the  "  possessed,"  or  insane,  were  tenanted 
by  familiar  demons  in  various  shapes — toads,  scorpions, 
swine,  serpents,  and  the  like.  These  demons  were  sup- 
posed to  have  as  their  normal  home  an  "  abyss "  or 
"  deep"  (Luke  viii.  31,  ajivcraov)  ;  but  this  they  abhorred, 
and  were  never  so  happy  as  when  they  found  a  home  in 
some  human  body.  The  "  possessed  "  believed  that  these 
demons  were  visible  and  material ;  and  the  juggling 
exorcist  would  sometimes  (so  Josephus  tells  us)  place  a 
bucket  of  water  to  be  overturned  by  the  demons  in  pass- 
ing, as  a  proof  that  they  were  driven  out.  In  a  word,  the 
"  possessed "  could  hardly  be  convinced  that  he  was 
cured,  unless  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the  frogs, 
serpents,  scorpions,  or  swine  actually  rushing  from  his 
mouth  in  some  definite  direction. 

The  explanation  of  the  miracle  will  now  readily  suggest 
itself  to  you.     Some  man  perhaps  a  patriotic  Galilean,  to 


Letter^       FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST?  205 

whom  nothing  would  be  more  hateful  than  a  Roman 
army,  conceived  himself  to  be  possessed  by  a  whole 
"legion,"  two  thousand  "unclean  swine,"  Identifying 
himself— as  was  the  habit  of  those  who  were  "  possessed  " 
—with  the  demons  whom  he  supposed  to  have  posses- 
sion of  him,  the  insane  man  declared  that  his  name 
was  "  Legion,  for  we  are  many ; "  and  they  (or  he) 
besought  Jesus  that  He  would  not  drive  them  into  the 
"  deep  "i.e.  into  the  "  abyss  "  above-mentioned.  But  by  the 
voice  of  Jesus  the  man  is  instantaneously  healed :  he 
sees  the  legion  of  demons  that  had  possessed  him  rushing 
forth  in  the  shapes  of  two  thousand  swine  and  hurrying 
down  into  ' "  the  deep  ;  "  and  what  he  sees,  he  loudly 
proclaims  to  the  bystanders.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  how 
on  some  such  a  basis  of  fact  there  might  be  built  the 
tradition  that  Jesus  healed  a  demoniac  whose  name 
was  Legion,  and  sent  two  thousand  swine  into  the  deep 
sea  ;  and  from  thence  by  easy  stages  the  tradition  might 
arrive  at  its  present  shape. 

So  far,  I  think,  you  do  not  find  it  very  difficult  to 
separate  the  miraculous  from  the  historical  in  the  life  of 
Christ,  nor  feel  yourself  forced  to  sacrifice  any  of  the 
"  most  characteristic  sayings  of  Jesus."  Let  us  now  come 
to  a  miracle  of  greater  difficulty,  the  blasting  of  the 
barren  fig-tree. 

Even  of  those  commentators  who  accept  the  miracle 
of  the  fig-tree  as  historical,  most,  I  believe,  see  in  it  a 
kind  of  parable.  The  barren  fig-tree,  they  say,  which 
made  a  great  show  of  leaves  but  bore  no  fruit,  obviously 
represents,  in  the  first  place,  the  Pharisees,  and  in  the 
second  place,  the  nation,  which,  as  a  whole,  identified 
itself  with  the  Pharisees.  Both  the  Prophets  and  the 
Psalms  delight  in  similar  metaphors.  Israel  is  the  vine  ; 
Jehovah,  in  Isaiah,  is  the  Lord  of  the  vine,  who  demands 
good  fruit  and  finds  it  not,  and  consequently  resolves  to 


206      ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE     [Letter  18 

destroy  the  vine.  So  here,  the  Lord  comes  to  the  fig-tree 
of  Phariseeism,  the  tree  of  degenerate  Israel,  seeking 
fruit ;  and  finding  none,  He  curses  it,  and  withers  it  with 
the  breath  of  His  mouth.  Is  it  not  easy  to  see  how  a 
parable,  thus  expressed  in  the  hymns  and  earliest  tradi- 
tions of  the  Church,  might  speedily  be  literalized  and  give 
rise  to  a  miraculous  narrative  ? 

Let  me  point  out  to  you  a  curious  fact  confirmatory  of 
this  view.  I  dare  say  you  may  have  noticed  that  St.  Luke, 
although  he  agrees  with  St.  Mark  and  St.  Matthew  in  the 
context  of  this  miracle,  omits  the  miracle  itself.  Why  so  ? 
Is  it  because  he  never  heard  of  the  miracle  ?  Not  quite 
so.  It  is  because  he  had  heard  of  it  in  a  slightly  different 
form,  not  as  a  miracle  but  as  a  parable,  which  he  alone 
has  preserved.  St.  Luke's  version  of  the  tradition  is 
that  the  Lord,  comes  to  the  barren  tree  and,  finding  no 
fruit  on  it,  gives  orders  that  it  is  to  be  cut  down  :  but  the 
steward  of  the  farm  pleads  for  a  respite  ;  let  the  ground 
be  digged  and  manured,  then,  if  there  be  no  fruit,  let  it  be 
cut  down.  A  similar  thought,  you  see,  is  here  expressed 
in  two  different  shapes,  a  miraculous  and  a  non-miracu- 
lous ;  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  the  former 
may  have  been  developed  from  the  latter. 

But  I  see  that  your  last  letter  has  a  remark  on  this  very 
miracle,  and  on  the  difficulty  of  rejecting  it.  "  It  is  asso- 
ciated," you  say,  "  with  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
sayings  of  Jesus  :  for  it  is  in  connection  with  the  wither- 
ing of  the  fig-tree  that  Jesus  says  (Matt.  xxi.  21),  'If  ye 
have  faith,  ye  shall  not  only  do  what  is  done  to  the  fig-tree, 
but  even  if  ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou 
taken  up  and  cast  into  the  sea,  it  shall  be  done.'" 
"  Here,"  you  say,  "  we  have  a  characteristic  saying  of 
Jesus  expressly  referring  to  something  done,  and  done 
miraculously." 

Would   it    not    have    been    wise,    before    making    so 


Letter  iS]      FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST? 


207 


emphatic  a  statement,  to  consider  how  St.  Mark,  the 
earlier  of  the  two  narrators  of  this  miracle,  sets  forth  the 
comment  of  Jesus?  The  comments  run  thus  in  the  first 
two  Gospels,  and  I  will  add  a  parallel  saying  from  the 
third  Gospel,  not  attached  to  any  miracle  : 


Mark  xi.  21-23. 

And  Peter,  calling  to 
remembrance,  saith  umo 
him,  "Rabbi,  behold  the 
fig  tree  which  thou  curs- 
edst  is  withered  away." 
And  Jesus  answering  saith 
untothem,  '"  Have  faith 
in  God.  Verily  I  say  unto 
you.  Whosoever  shall  say 
unto  this  mountain,  Be 
thou  taken  up  and  cast 
into  the  sea  ;  and  shall  not 
doubt  in  his  heart,  but 
shall  believe  that  what  he 
saith  cometh  to  pass  ;  he 
shall  have  it." 


Matthew  xxi.  20-21. 
And  when  the  disciples 
saw  it,  they  marvelled, 
saying,  "  How  did  the  fig 
tree  immediately  wither 
away?"  And  Jesus  said 
unto  them.  "  Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  If  ye  have  faith, 
and  doubt  not,  ye  shall 
\_710t  only  do  what  is  done 
to  the  Jig  tree,  b?ctevenif 
ye  shall]  say  unto  this 
mountain,  Be  thou  taken 
up  and  cast  into  the  sea, 
it  shall  be  done." 


Luke  xvii.  5-6. 

And  the  apostles 
said  unto  the  Lord 
" Increase  our 
faith."  And  the 
Lord  said,  "  If  ye 
have  faith  as  a 
grain  of  mustard 
seed,  ye  would  say 
unto  this  sycamine 
tree,  Be  thou  rooted 
up,  and  be  thou 
planted  in  the  sea  ; 
and  it  would  have 
obeyed  you." 


You  see  then  that  the  more  authoritative  (because  earlier) 
of  our  two  witnesses  omits  those  very  words  on  which  you 
lay  so  much  stress,  the  "  express  reference  to  something 
done,  and  done  miraculously."  And  ought  not  this  fact  to 
make  you  pause  and  ask  yourself  "  Am  I  really  to  suppose 
that  the  Lord  Jesus  encouraged  His  disciples  to  command 
material  mountains  to  be  cast  into  the  sea,  and  material 
trees  to  be  destroyed  ?  Did  He  Himself  so  habitually 
act  thus  that  He  could  naturally  urge  His  disciples  to  do 
the  like  ?  Does  it  not  seem,  literally  taken,  advice  con- 
trary not  only  to  common  sense  but  also  to  a  reverent 
appreciation  of  the  law  and  order  of  nature  ? "  I  would 
suggest  to  you  that  you  might  weigh  the  inherent  improb- 
ability of  the  words  in  St.  Matthew  (literally  taken),  as  well 
as  the  external  probability — which  I  will  now  endeavour  to 
shew — that  the  whole  passage  was  metaphorical. 

We   know   from    St.    Paul's   works,   as   well    as   from 
Rabbinical  literature,  that  "to  move  mountains"  was  a 


208      ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE     [Letter  18 

common  metaphor  to  express  intellectual  or  spiritual 
ability.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  faith  that  would  "  move 
mountains  ; "  and  you  will  find  in  Lightfoot's  Home 
Hebraicae  (ii.  p.  285), "  There  was  not  such  another  rooter 
up  of  mountains  as  Ben  Azzai."  Now  we  know  from  St. 
Luke's  Gospel  (xvii.  6),  that  Jesus  used  a  similar  metaphor 
of  trees,  as  well  as  of  mountains,  to  exemplify  the  power 
of  faith ;  and  this  without  any  reference  to  "  something 
done  and  done  miraculously  :  "  "  If  ye  have  faith  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  would  say  unto  this  sycamine 
tree,  Be  thou  rooted  up  and  planted  in  the  sea ;  and  it 
would  have  obeyed."  Planted  in  the  sea  !  Can  you 
dream  that  so  preposterous  a  portent  could  have  been 
prayed  for  by  any  sane  and  sober  follower  of  Christ  in  com- 
pliance with  his  Master's  suggestion  ?  Bear  in  mind  that 
these  words  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel  were  uttered  a  long  time 
before  the  blasting  of  the  fig-tree  is  supposed  to  have 
happened,  and  at  a  different  place.  Does  not  then  a  com- 
parison of  this  passage  with  the  other  two  make  it  pro- 
bable that  Jesus  was  in  the  habit  of  encouraging  His 
disciples  to  be  "  pluckers  up  of  mountains  "  and  "  rooters 
up  of  trees,"  not  literally  but  metaphorically,  meaning 
thereby  that  they  were  to  attempt  and  accomplish  the 
greatest  feats  of  faith  ? 

You  will,  perhaps,  be  surprised  when  you  find  what  it 
was  that  Jesus  regarded  as  the  greatest  feat  of  faith  in  the 
passage  of  St.  Luke  just  mentioned.  It  was  a  feat  of 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  think  rather  lightly  ;  partly, 
perhaps,  because  we  are  often  contented  with  the  appear- 
ance of  it  without  the  reality  :  it  was  simply  forgiveness. 
He  had  told  the  disciples  they  must  forgive  "  till  seventy 
times  seven/'  The  Apostles,  in  despair,  replied  "  Increase 
our  faith  :  "  and  then  Jesus  tells  them  that  if  they  had  but 
a  germ  of  living  trust,  they  could  become  "  uprooters  of 
sycamine  trees,"  in  other  words  they  could  perform  for- 


Letter  18]       FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST?  209 

giveness,  the  greatest  feat  of  faith.  But  perhaps  you  will 
say,  "  At  all  events  in  St.  Mark,  the  earliest  authority  for 
the  miracle  of  the  blasting  of  the  fig-tree,  there  is  no 
mention  of  forgiveness,  and  nothing  that  would  indicate 
that  his  version  of  the  words  of  Jesus  referred  to  what  you 
call  '  the  greatest  feat  of  faith,'  i.e.  forgiveness."  On  the 
contrary,  you  will  find  that  St.  Mark,  with  some  apparent 
confusion  of  different  thoughts,  retains  the  trace  of  the 
original  spiritual  signification  of  the  words  (Mark  xi. 
22—25) :  "  Have  faith  in  God.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  who- 
soever shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou  taken  up  and 
cast  into  the  sea,  and  shall  not  doubt  in  his  heart  but 
shall  believe  that  what  he  saith  cometh  to  pass,  he  shall 
have  it.  Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  All  things  whatsoever 
ye  pray  and  ask  for,  believe  that  ye  have  received  them, 
and  ye  shall  have  them ;  And  whensoever  ye  stand  praying, 
forgive,  if  ye  have  aught  against  any  one  ;  that  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  may  forgive  your  trespasses." 

I  contend  that,  upon  the  whole,  an  impartial  critic  must 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  neither  the  miracle,  nor  the 
reference  to  the  miracle,  is  historical ;  and  that,  in  all 
probability,  both  the  miracle  and  the  reference  to  it  arose 
from  a  misunderstanding,  without  any  intention  to  deceive. 
We  must  remember  that  the  "  short  sayings  "  of  the  Lord 
Jesus — as  they  are  called  by  some  early  writer,  Justin,  I 
think — must  have  caused  considerable  difficulty  to  the 
compilers  of  the  earliest  Gospels  in  the  attempt  to  arrange 
them  in  order.  Pointed,  pithy,  and  brief,  pregnant  with 
meaning,  sometimes  obscured  by  metaphor,  many  of  these 
sayings,  if  taken  out  of  their  context,  were  very  liable  to  be 
misunderstood.  Some  compilers  might  think  it  best,  as  the 
author  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  has  done  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  to  group  a  number  of  these  sayings  together 
without  connection  ;  others,  as  the  author  of  St.  Luke's 
Gospel,  might  object  to  this  arrangement,  and  might  make 

P 


210      ARE  THE  MIRACLES  INSEPARABLE     [Letter  iS 

it  a  main  object  to  set  forth  these  sayings  "  in  order," 
attaching  to  each  its  appropriate  and  explanatory  context. 
Now  to  apply  this  to  the  particular  case  of  the  legend  of 
the  fig-tree.  It  seems  probable  that  the  compilers  had 
before  them  two  traditions,  one,  a  parable  about  a  barren 
fig-tree  destroyed  by  the  Lord  of  the  vine-yard  because  it 
bore  no  fruit  ;  another,  a  precept  about  the  power  of 
faith  in  uprooting  a  mountain  or  a  tree,  i.e.  in  achieving 
the  greatest  of  spiritual  tasks,  the  task  of  forgiving.  St. 
Luke  interpreted  both  the  parable  and  the  precept 
spiritually,  and  kept  the  two  distinct.  St.  Mark  inter- 
preted the  parable  literally  and  adopted  the  tradition  which 
made  it  refer  to  an  actual  destruction  of  a  tree ;  he  also 
appended  to  it  the  saying  on  the  power  of  faithful  prayer  to 
work  any  wonders  soever,  as  being  an  appropriate  comment 
on  so  startling  a  miracle  ;  but  he  did  not  think  fit  to  adapt 
the  saying  to  the  miracle  by  any  insertion  of  the  word 
"  tree  "  ("  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  whosoever  shall  say  unto 
this  mountain,  Be  thou  taken  up"  &c.)  ;  and  he  retained 
the  old  connection  of  the  saying  with  forgiveness. 
St.  Matthew — of  course,  when  I  say  St.  Matthew,  I  mean 
the  unknown  authors  or  compilers  of  the  Gospel  called  by 
his  name — is  more  consistent.  He,  like  St.  Mark  interprets 
the  parable  literally,  and  he  appends  to  it  the  saying  on  the 
power  of  faithful  prayer  ;  but  he  inserts  in  the  latter  an 
express  reference  to  the  miracle  which,  according  to  his 
hypothesis,  had  recently  been  worked  before  the  eyes  of  the 
Disciples  and  could  hardly  therefore  fail  to  be  mentioned  : 
"  If  ye  have  faith  and  doubt  not,  ye  shall  \iioi  only  do  what 
is  done  to  the  Jig-tree,  but  even  if  ye  shalf\  say  unto  this 
mountain,"  &c.  In  order  to  complete  the  adaptation,  he 
also  omits  the  words  that  connect  the  saying  with  forgive- 
ness, and  relegates  them  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  (vi. 
14,  15)  which  he  makes  the  receptacle  for  all  those  sayings 
of  Jesus  for  which  he  can  find  no  special  time  and  place. 


Later  iS\      FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST?  211 

"  All  this  is  shadowy,  barely  possible,  mere  conjecture. 
I  maintain  that  conjecture,  fairly  supported,  is  enough  to 
give  the  finishing  blow  to  all  faith  in  a  miracle  so  different 
from  Christ's  other  "  mighty  works  "  as  this  of  the  fig- 
tree.  Before  finally  and  utterly  rejecting  a  story  found  in 
a  generally  truthful  narrative  we  wish  not  only  to  know 
that  the  story  is  improbable,  but  also  to  answer  the 
question,  "How  may  it  have  crept  into  the  narrative  ? " 
The  above  conjecture  supplies  a  fairly  probable  answer  to 
that  question  ;  and  the  combined  result  of  the  evidence  for 
the  probability  of  some  rational  explanation,  and  against 
the  probability  of  the  miraculous  occurrence,  is  so  great 
that  I  can  feel  no  hesitation  in  rejecting  the  miracle  of  the 
fig-tree  and  in  declaring  that  the  "  characteristic  sayings  " 
of  Jesus  about  the  uprooting  of  mountains  and  trees  were 
never  intended  to  be  literally  understood. 

And  now,  before  going  further,  ask  yourself  once  more, 
"  What  have  I  lost,  so  far,  by  giving  up  the  miracles  of 
Jesus  ?  Does  He  sink  in  my  estimation  because  He  did 
not  blast  a  fig-tree  or  destroy  two  thousand  swine,  or  draw 
a  fish  with  a  stater  in  its  mouth  to  the  hook  of  Peter  ?  Or 
have  I  lost  a  precious  and ' characteristic  saying'  of  Jesus 
because  I  no  longer  believe  that  He  really  encouraged  His 
disciples  to  pray  for  the  uprooting  of  material  mountains 
and  material  trees?"  I  am  quite  sure  your  conscience 
must  reply  that  you  have  hitherto  lost  nothing.  If  so,  take 
courage,  and  follow  on  step  by  step  where  the  argument 
leads  you. 


P  2 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING 


XIX 

My  dear , 

You  remind  me  that  I  have  omitted  the  most 
important  of  all  those  sayings  of  Christ  which  are  asso- 
ciated with  miracles — the  passage  in  which  he  comments 
on  the  feeding  of  the  Four  Thousand  and  on  that  of  the 
Five  Thousand,  as  two  separate  acts,  apparently  implying 
their  miraculous  nature.  I  have  not  forgotten  it ;  but  I 
reserved  it  to  the  last  because  it  is,  as  you  justly  say,  the 
most  important  and  the  most  difficult  of  all  ;  but  I 
believe  it  to  be  susceptible  of  explanation. 

Let  us  first  have  the  facts  before  us.  In  the  Gospels  of 
St.  Matthew  (viii.  15)  and  St.  Mark  (xvi.  6)  Jesus  is 
introduced  as  bidding  the  Disciples  "beware  of  the  leaven 
of  the  Pharisees  and  the  leaven  of  Herod"  (or,  as 
Matthew,  "  the  Sadducees.")  Upon  this  the  disciples,  as 
usual,  interpret  the  words  of  Jesus  literally ;  they  suppose 
that,  since  they  have  forgotten  to  bring  bread  with  them 
(for  they  had  but  one  loaf)  their  Master  wishes  to  warn 
them  to  beware  of  leaven  during  the  approaching  feast  of 
Passover  or  unleavened  bread.     Hereupon  Jesus,  in  order 


Letter  19]      THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  213 

to  shew  them  that  He  was  not  speaking  literally,  rebukes 
their  dull  and  literalizing  minds  as  follows  : — 

Mark  viii.  17-21.  Matthew  xvi.  8-12. 

"  Why  reason  ye  because  ye  have  "  Why  reasm  ye  among  yourselves 

no  bread  ?    Do  ye  not  yet  perceive  ?        because  ye  have  no  bread  ?    Do  ye 

When  I   brake    the   five         not  yet  perceive   neither   remember 

loaves  among  the  five  thousand,  how  the  five  loaves  of  the  five  thousand 
many  baskets  full  of  broken  pieces  and  how  many  baskets  took  ye  up? 
took  ye  up?"  They  say  unto  him,  Neither  the  seven  loaves  of  the  four 
"Twelve."  "And  when  the  seven  thousand  and  how  many  baskets  ye 
among  the  four  thousand,  how  many  took  up?  How  is  it  that  ye  do  not 
baskets  full  of  broken  pieces  took  perceive  that  I  spake  not  to  you 
ye  up?"  And  they  say  unto  him,  concerning  bread?  But  beware  of 
''  Seven."  And  he  said  unto  them,  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
"  Do  ye  not  yet  understand  ?  "  ducees."   Then  understood  they  how 

that  he  bade  them  not  beware  of  the 
leaven  of  bread,  but  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees. 

Now  before  I  proceed  further  I  must  point  out  to  you 
that  these  words  are  not  found  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel.  For 
my  own  part  I  am  disposed  to  believe  them  to  be  genuine, 
though  not  quite  in  the  exact  form  in  which  we  now 
find  them.  I  think  St.  Luke  may  have  omitted  them 
because  he  found  some  difficulty  or  obscurity  in  them  ;  or 
because  he  did  not  know  of  them ;  or  perhaps  because  he 
did  not  know  of,  or  did  not  accept,  the  feeding  of  the  Four 
Thousand,  to  which  they  refer.  But  suppose  we  are  forced 
to  give  them  up  as  altogether  spurious,  that  is  to  say,  as 
not  being  genuine  words  of  Jesus,  though  genuine  parts  of 
the  first  and  second  Gospels  ;  what  is  the  consequence  ? 
Simply  that  we  shall  be  reduced  to  St.  Luke's  version  of 
the  words,  which  is  as  follows  (Luke  xii.  1) :  "  Beware  ye 
of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  which  is  hypocrisy."  Can 
we  say  that  St.  Luke  has  herein  omitted  words  that  are  es- 
sential to  the  life  of  Christ,  or  that  we  have  lost  anything 
of  the  highest  importance,  or  even  that  we  have  lost  a  very 
"  characteristic  saying  "  of  Jesus  in  omitting  the  statistical 
comparison  which  St.  Luke  omits  ?     I  think  not. 

But  now  let  us  assume  that  Jesus  uttered  these  words 
or  something  like  them.     I  think  you  would  perceive  that 


2i4  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING       [Letter  19 

they  could  be  interpreted  metaphorically,  if  you  could  only 
comprehend  how  the  accounts  of  the  miraculous  feeding  of 
the  Four  Thousand  and  of  the  Five  Thousand  (obviously 
literal  as  they  now  stand  in  our  Gospels)  could  be  referred 
to  as  spiritual  incidents.  In  order  to  answer  this  question 
we  must  now  pass  to  the  narratives  of  the  two  miracles 
themselves.  I  suppose  even  those  who  accept  them 
literally  would  admit  that  they  are  emblematic,  and  that 
they  represent  Jesus,  the  Bread  of  Life,  giving  Himself 
for  the  world.  The  Fourth  Gospel  manifests  this  in  the 
subsequent  discourse  where  the  feeding  on  the  bread  and 
fishes  introduces  the  subject  of  the  feeding  on  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  Christ.  The  notion  that  we  feed  on  the 
Word  of  God,  first  found  in  Deuteronomy  (viii.  3),  per- 
vades all  Jewish  literature.  It  is  found  in  Philo  (i.  119)  : 
"  The  soul  is  nourished  not  on  earthly  and  corruptible 
food,  but  on  the  words  which  Gods  rains  down  out  of  His 
sublime  and  pure  nature  which  He  calls  heaven."  It  re- 
appears in  the  account  of  our  Lord's  temptation,  when  He 
replies  to  Satan,  quoting  Deut.  viii.  3,  "  Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mouth  of  God  ; "  and  again  (John  iv.  32),  "  I 
have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not." 

On  that  last  occasion  the  Fourth  Gospel  tells  us  that  the 
disciples  actually  misunderstood  the  metaphor  and  inter- 
preted it  literally  ;  and  to  this  day  I  dare  say  many  would 
give  a  literal  interpretation  to  the"  daily  bread  "of  the  Lord's 
prayer  ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Jesus  meant  by 
"bread"  every  gift  and  blessing  that  constitutes  life,  and 
primarily  the  spiritual  sustenance  of  the  soul.  As  to  the 
emblematic  use  of  the  "  fish,"  it  cannot  be  traced  to  the 
Old  Testament  ;  but  in  a  very  early  period  of  the  existence 
of  the  Church,  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Vespasian,  we  find 
the  Fish  in  rude  paintings  representing  the  Eucharistic 
food  of  the  faithful  ;  and  it  is  said  that  this  appellation  was 


Letter  19]      THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  215 

given  to  Jesus  from  the  initial  letters  of  the  Greek  title 
I(esous)  Ch(ristos)  Th(eou)  U(ios)  S(oter)  [Jesus  Christ, 
Son  of  God,  Saviour]  because  they  made  up  the  Greek 
word  Ichthus,  fish.  About  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  we  find  one  of  the  earliest  extant  Christian  poems 
describing  how  the  Church  everywhere  presented  to  the 
faithful,  as  their  food,  "  the  Fish,  great  and  pure,  which 
the  Holy  Virgin  had  caught."  The  poet  evidently  did  not 
invent  this  metaphor  ;  it  was  established,  intelligible,  and 
inherited,  at  the  time  when  he  used  it,  and  must  have 
been  in  use  much  earlier.  To  speak  of  "  crumbs  "  meta- 
phorically may  perhaps  seem  to  us  a  bold  metaphor, 
but  it  may'be  illustrated  by  the  dialogue  between  Jesus 
and  the  Syro-Phcenician  woman  :  "  It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  food  and  cast  it  unto  dogs : "  "  Truth,  Lord  ; 
yet  even  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  the 
master's  table."  Now  it  was  a  common-place  in  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus  that  every  disciple  who  ministered  the 
Word  or  Bread  of  Life  invariably  received  it  back  in 
ample  measure  :  "  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give." 
Give  what  ?  Certainly  not  material  bread,  but  the  truth 
or  bread  of  life.  And  again,  "  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given 
unto  you  :  good  measure  pressed  down  and  running  over 
shall  they  x  give  into  your  bosom."  Again,  I  ask,  give 
what  ?  What  but  the  spiritual  Bread,  which,  by  the  laws 
of  spiritual  nature,  cannot  be  freely  given  without  a  yet 
more  rich  return  into  the  giver's  heart?  It  was  this 
Bread  that  Christ  ministered  to  His  disciples  and  bade 
them  set  before  the  people  ;  it  was  this  Bread  which  the 
disciples  found  multiplied  in  their  hands  so  that  it  sufficed 
for  all,  and  they  themselves  were  fed  from  the  crumbs 
that  fell  from  the  food. 

In  course  of  time  the  story  of  this  spiritual  banquet 
finding  its  way  into  Christian  hymns  and  traditions  would 

1  i.e.  the  Powers  of  Heaven 


216  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING        {Letter  19 

be  literalized  and  amplified  with  variations.  As  Moses 
"  spread  a  table  "  for  Israel  "  in  the  wilderness,"  so  also, 
it  would  be  said,  did  Jesus  of  Nazareth  when  he  fed 
thousands  of  His  followers  on  divine  Bread.  The  Fish, 
which  is  not  mentioned  in  our  Lord's  dialogue  with  the 
Disciples,  might  naturally  be  added  to  the  Bread,  in  the 
narrative,  as  a  Eucharistic  emblem.  If  the  Fish  had 
been  mentioned  by  our  Lord  in  the  dialogue  under  ques- 
tion, my  explanation  would  at  once  fall  to  the  ground  ; 
but  it  is  not  mentioned  ;  and  the  only  difficulty  is  in  ex- 
plaining how  Jesus  could  have  spoken  metaphorically  of 
the  "  seven  "  as  well  as  the  "  twelve  "  baskets.  We  can  un- 
derstand the  "  twelve  "—each  one  of  the  twelve  Apostles 
who  ministered,  receiving  a  return  of  spiritual  "  crumbs  "— 
but  whence  the  "  seven  "  ?  Here  I  can  but  conjecture. 
You  know  that  seven  is  what  is  called  "  a  sacred  number." 
I  find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  xxi.  2-14,  a  story  (evidently 
emblematic)  of  a  miraculous  meal  of  bread  and  fishes  in 
which  "  seven ;;  apostles  took  part.  This  may  have  been 
based  upon  some  tradition  in  which  seven  apostles  were 
recorded  as  having  taken  part  in  a  spiritual  Eucharistic 
feeding  of  the  multitude.  If  that  was  so,  it  would  follow 
that  in  the  latter  case  there  would  be  "  seven  baskets  "  of 
fragments,  as  in  the  former  case  there  were  "  twelve,"  cor- 
responding to  the  number  of  the  ministering  apostles  :  and 
Jesus,  in  the  dialogue  under  consideration,  would  remind 
His  disciples  how  on  two  occasions  where  the  bread  of 
life  was  multiplied  for  the  hungry,  the  twelve  Apostles 
received  the  twelve  baskets  of  crumbs,  and  the  seven 
received  the  seven. 

What  is  the  argument  in  the  words  under  consideration, 
according  to  your  interpretation  ?  I  presume  you  would 
take  them  thus  :  "  Why  do  you  suppose  I  am  talking 
about  literal  bread  ?  Can  I  not  make  bread  as  I  please  ? 
Do  you  not  remember  my  two  miracles,  and  how  from 


Letter  19]      THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  217 

five  loaves  for  five  thousand  people  there  came  twelve 
baskets  of  fragments,  while  from  seven  loaves  for  four 
thousand  people  there  came  seven  baskets  P1  How  then 
can  I  (or  you  while  you  are  with  me)  be  in  need  of  literal 
bread?"  But  this  interpretation  is  open  to  one  serious 
objection.  It  is  opposed  to  the  whole  tenour  of  Christ' s 
life.  Nowhere  else  in  the  Gospels  do  we  find  that  Jesus 
used  any  miraculous  power  to  exempt  Himself  and  His 
disciples  from  hunger.  We  are  even  taught  that  on  one 
occasion  He  resisted  a  prompting  to  turn  stones  into 
bread,  as  being  a  temptation  from  the  Evil  One.  For 
His  disciples  he  might  undoubtedly  have  been  willing  to 
do  what  He  would  not  do  for  Himself ;  but  that  Jesus 
(like  Elisha)  so  habitually  used  miraculous  powers  to 
shelter  His  disciples  from  the  inconveniences  and  hard- 
ships of  a  wandering  life,  that  he  could  encourage  them  to 
believe  that  he  would  do  so  on  the  present  occasion,  is  a 
hypothesis  quite  inconsistent  with  the  Gospel  history. 
Moreover,  plausible  although  this  interpretation  may 
appear  to  us— because  we  are  familiar  with  the  literalizing 
interpretation  of  the  miracles  of  the  Four  Thousand  and 
Five  Thousand— it  does  not,  if  I  may  so  say,  bring  out  the 
proportion  of  the  sentence.  Surely  it  does  not  sound  logical 
to  say,  "  Did  I  not  once  supply  you  with  bread  for  four  and 
five  thousand  people  (literally)  ?  Why  then  do  you  not 
understand  that  I  now  speak  of  '  leaven '  metaphorically  ?  " 
Instead  of  this,  should  we  not  rather  expect  :"Do  you  not 
remember  how  on  two  previous  occasions  'bread'  was 
used  spiritually  ?  Why  then  do  you  not  understand  that 
'  leaven  '  is  here  used  spiritually  ? "  Now  this  is  what  I 
believe  to  have  been  the  original  meaning  of  the  words 
if  genuine.     I  believe  that  Jesus  intended  to  remind  the 

1  Two  different  kinds  of  baskets  appear  to  be  denoted  by  the  two  different 
Greek  words.  A  similar  difference  is  also  found  in  the  narratives  of  the 
feeding  of  the  Four  Thousand  and  the  Five  Thousand :  but  it  would  be  easy 
to  shew  that  no  inference  of  importance  can  be  drawn  from  this  distinction. 


2i8  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING       [Letter  19 

Disciples  how  on  two  previous  occasions  the  multitude 
had  been  fed  with  the  spiritual  Bread,  the  Bread  of  Life  : 
"  You  know  that  that  was  what  I  meant  before,  when  I 
spoke  of  Bread  ;  how  is  it  then  that  you  do  not  understand 
my  meaning  now  when  I  speak  similarly  of  leaven  ? " 

I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  this  explanation  is  com- 
pletely satisfactory  even  to  me,  much  less  to  claim  that  it 
should  completely  satisfy  others.  Some  may  prefer  to 
rationalize  the  miracle  as  an  exaggeration  with  a  substra- 
tum of  fact ;  others  may  reject  the  dialogue  as  a  late  inter- 
polation. Yet  even  then  I  think  the  considerations  above 
alleged — which  I  have  put  forward,  on  the  supposition 
that  the  dialogue  is  genuine — may  go  a  long  way  toward 
shewing  how  these  miraculous  stories  may  have  sprung 
up  without  any  real  basis  of  miracle,  and  how,  in  the 
elaboration  of  these  narratives,  words  that  cannot  be 
accepted  as  historical  may  have  been  attributed  to 
Jesus  without  any  fraudulent  purpose.  Although  I 
am  unwilling  to  admit  (and  do  not  feel  called  upon  by 
evidence  to  admit)  that  the  words  and  doctrine  of  Jesus 
have  been  seriously  modified  to  suit  the  miraculous  in- 
terpolations of  early  Christian  times,  yet  of  course  (on 
my  hypothesis)  some  slight  occasional  modifications 
cannot  be  denied.  For  example,  in  the  miracle  of  the 
Four  Thousand,  Jesus  is  introduced  as  saying,  *'  How 
many  loaves  have  ye?"  These  words  must  necessarily 
be  rejected  by  any  one  taking  my  view  of  the  narrative, 
as  the  addition  of  some  later  tradition  which,  interpret- 
ing a  metaphor  literally,  endeavoured  to  set  forth  the  lite- 
ral fact  dramatically  as  it  was  supposed  to  have  occurred. 
In  the  same  way  it  is  possible  that  the  dialogue  now 
under  consideration  may  be  an  amplification  of  a  simple 
rebuke  from  Jesus  to  the  disciples  for  misunderstanding 
His  precept  as  to  leaven,  the  early  tradition  having  run 
somewhat  after  this  fashion  :  "  The  Lord  spread  a  table 


Letter  19]       THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  219 

for  the  hungry  in  the  wilderness  :  He  gave  them  bread 
from  heaven  to  eat.  The  Lord  gave  food  unto  the  multi- 
tude through  the  hands  of  the  Twelve ;  and  in  their  hands 
the  Bread  of  Life  was  multiplied  so  that  a  few  loaves 
satisfied  many  thousands.  Then  did  the  Lord  warn  His 
disciples  that  they  should  beware  of  leaven  and  feed  on 
nought  save  the  one  true  Bread.  But  they  understood  not 
His  words,  and  remembered  not  the  mighty  works  of  His 
hands."  It  seems  to  me  quite  possible,  I  say,  that  the 
dialogue  under  discussion  may  have  arisen  from  an  ampli- 
fication of  some  such  words  as  those  above  italicized  ;  and 
I  am  somewhat  the  more  inclined  to  take  this  view  because 
St.  Mark's  narrative  (the  earliest)  contains  a  curious  little 
detail  which  looks  like  a  trace  of  some  old  hymn  about 
"  the  one  true  Bread  "  i.e.  Jesus  :  "  They  had  not  in  the 
boat  with  them  more  than  one  loaf  (Gr.  bread)." 

If  these  suggested  solutions  seem  improbable,  letme  once 
more  remind  you  that  you  have  to  choose  between  them 
and  greater  improbabilities.  Either  the  miraculous 
narrative  must  be  historically  true  ;  or  it  must  have  been 
deliberately  fabricated  ;  or  it  must  have  sprung  into 
existence  without  intention  to  deceive.  As  to  the  impro- 
bability of  the  first  of  these  solutions,  I  say  nothing,  because 
you  have  rejected  it.  Certainly  it  would  be  difficult  for  a 
painter  to  depict  in  detail  the  processes  necessitated  by 
this  miracle  without  producing  a  grotesque  impression :  but 
on  this  point  I  am  silent,  as  it  is  beside  my  purpose.  It 
remains  therefore  for  you  to  decide  whether  the  theory  of 
deliberate  falsehood,  or  of  the  unconscious  accretions  of 
tradition  and  misunderstanding  of  metaphor,  supplies 
the  least  improbable  explanation.  For  my  part,  having 
regard  to  the  character  of  Christ's  disciples,  the  abundant 
evidence  that  they  misunderstood  the  teaching  of  their 
Master,  and  the  frequent  instances  of  miraculous  narrative 
arising  from  misunderstanding  in  other  cases,  I  have  no 


220  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING       [Letter  19 

hesitation  in  saying  that,  in  this  case  also,  the  hypothesis 
of  deceit  is  far  more  improbable  than  that  of  misunder- 
standing. 

I  had  not  intended  to  touch  on  any  other  miracle  ;  but 
one  more  can  be  so  briefly  discussed  that  I  will  not  omit 
it.  I  dare  say  you  have  anticipated  (though  you  have  not 
read  Onesimus 1 )  that  I  should  explain  the  "  walking  on 
the  waves"  and  the  "stilling  of  the  sea"  as  narratives 
derived  from  early  Christian  hymns  representing  the  Son 
of  God  as  stilling  the  storms  that  threaten  the  bark  of 
the  Church.  Nevertheless  you  may  not  have  perceived 
how  easily  a  historical  and  authentic  tradition  of  the 
deeds  and  words  of  Christ  would  lend  itself  to  amplifi- 
cation so  as  to  be  elaborated  into  the  full  miraculous 
narrative  as  we  now  find  it  in  the  Gospels.  Well 
then,  open  your  Greek  Testament  at  St.  Mark's  narrative 
(i.  25-27,  or  Lukeiv.  35,  36)  of  the  exorcism  of  an  unclean 
spirit.  You  will  there  find  it  stated  that  Jesus  "rebuked 
an  unclean  spirit ;  "  and  a  somewhat  rare  word  is  used  to 
express  the  rebuke,  "Be  thou  muzzled  ^t/ubAp-i)."  It 
is  further  added  that  the  disciples,  in  their  astonishment, 
said  to  one  another  "  What  is  this  ?  With  authority  he 
co7nmandeth  even  the  imclean  spirits  and  they  obey  him." 
Now  you  know  very  well  that  the  same  Greek  word 
(nvevfxa)  expresses  two  totally  distinct  English  words 
"  spirit "  and  "  wind  ; "  but  you  may  not  so  well  know  that 
the  same  ambiguity  is  found  in  Hebrew.  Look  at  Psalm 
civ.  4  in  the  Old  Version,  and  you  will  find  "  Who  maketh 
his  angels  (i.e.  messengers)  spirits;  "  but  the  New  Version 
gives,  more  correctly,  "Who  maketh  winds  his  mes- 
sengers,'-' or, "  Who  maketh  his  angels  winds."  Now  sup- 
pose that  in  some  cases  where  the  above  tradition  was 
circulated  in  the  Church,  either  in  Greek  or  Aramaic,  the 
word  "  unclean  "  was  omitted,  as  it  easily  might  be  for 
1  Pp.  275-6. 


Letter  19]      THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  221 

brevity.  It  would  follow  that,  without  the  change  of  a 
single  word,  the  hearers  might  interpret  the  story  as 
follows  :  "Jesus  rebuked  the  wind,  saying  to  it,  Be  thou 
muzzled.  His  disciples  marvelled,  saying,  What  is  this? 
With  authority  he  commandeth  even  the  winds  and  they 
obey  him." 

But  you  may  say  perhaps,  "  Jesus  could  not  use  such 
an  extraordinary  phrase  as  '  Be  thou  muzzled/  in  ad- 
dressing the  wind.  To  a  human  being  it  would  be 
applicable,  or  even  to  a  spirit,  but  not  to  the  wind/' 
Well,  it  certainly  would  be  rather  unusual :  but  turn  to 
St.  Mark  iv.  39,  and  you  will  there  find  a  passage  telling 
you  how,  in  'a  storm  at  sea,  Jesus  awoke  and  "  rebuked 
the  wind"  with  the  words  "  Be  thou  muzzled  (^i/xco^n)," 
and  how  the  wondering  disciples  said  to  one  another, 
"  Who  is  this  that  eve7i  the  wind  (Matthew  and  Luke, 
'  the  winds'  )  and  sea  obey  him  ?"  It  appears  to  me  by 
no  means  unlikely  that  we  have  here  two  versions  of  the 
same  tradition  ;  the  one  in  the  earlier  chapter  of  St.  Mark 
representing  the  facts  ;  the  other  in  the  later  chapter 
resulting  from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  facts,  whence 
there  sprang  up  the  amplified  and  beautiful  tradition  of 
the  Stilling  of  the  Storm — a  story  which  must  have  in  all 
ages  commended  itself  to  the  Church,  and  may  still 
commend  itself,  by  reason  of  its  deep  spiritual  truth, 
but  which  ought,  in  this  age,  to  be  recognized  as  in  all 
probability,  not  historically  true. 

Neither  of  the  above-mentioned  explanations  of  this 
miraculous  narrative  appears  to  me  by  any  means  certain  ; 
but  either  seems  to  me  decidedly  more  likely  than  that 
Jesus  so  far  raised  Himself  above  the  conditions  of 
humanity  as  to  rebuke  and  check  the  winds  and  the  seas. 
If  I  interpret  the  life  of  Christ  aright,  He  neither  did, 
nor  wished  to  do,  any  such  thing,  and  would  have 
regarded  the  suggestion  to  do  it   as  a  temptation  from 


222  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING       [Letter  19 

Satan.  I  say  this  with  reverence,  almost  with  fear  and 
trembling,  knowing  that  I  must  give  account  of  these 
words  hereafter  before  Him.  But  what  can  a  man  do 
more  to  shew  his  homage  for  the  Truth  than  follow  where 
the  Truth  appears  to  lead  ? 

In  any  case  I  am  sure  we  cannot  rightly  understand 
the  life  and  mind  of  Jesus  until,  by  a  great  effort, 
we  have  divested  ourselves  of  our  inveterate  and  vulgar 
belief  that  He  wrought  His  mighty  works  as  mere 
demonstrations  of  His  divine  mission,  and  that  He  had 
power  to  perform  any  works  whatever,  quite  regardless  of 
the  laws  of  nature.  Had  that  been  the  case,  I  do  not  see 
how  He  could  have  blamed  the  Pharisees  for  asking  Him 
to  work  a  sign  in  heaven.  Why  should  they  not  have 
asked  it,  and  why  should  not  He  have  worked  it  ? 
Jugglers  and  impostors  were  very  common  in  the  East : 
Galilee  and  Samaria  were  thronged  with  professional 
exorcists :  in  miracles  performed  on  men  there  was 
always  the  possibility  of  collusion  ;  any  act  on  earth  was 
open  to  suspicion  of  imposture,  but  in  heaven — this  was 
the  general  belief — there  could  be  certainty  ;  no  mere 
magician  could  work  a  sign  in  heaven.  "  Let  but  the  sun 
stand  still  for  half  a  day,  and  we  will  believe,' '  surely  this, 
from  the  demonstration-point-of-view  of  miracles,  was  a 
very  natural  request ;  and  if  Jesus  really  had  the  power  of 
stopping  the  sun  for  half  a  day,  and  if  He  felt  that  His 
wonder-working  faculty  was  given  to  Him  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  demonstrating  His  divine  power,  I  cannot 
understand  how  He  could  have  refused,  much  less  rebuked, 
the  request  of  the  Pharisees. 

But  in  truth  His  mighty  works  or  signs  were  not  wrought 
in  this  deliberate  way  for  the  mere  purpose  of  demonstra- 
tion. They  were  the  results  of  an  irrepressible  pity, 
appealing  to  an  instinct  of  power.  He  could  not  see  a 
demoniac  or  a  paralytic  look  trustfully  upon  Him  without 


Letter  19]      THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING  223 

longing  to  help,  and  in  many  cases  feeling  that  it  was 
God's  will  that  He  should  help.  To  suppose  that  He  cured 
all  who  were  brought  to  Him  is  absurd,  and  is  contrary 
(as  we  have  seen  above)  to  the  evidence  of  the  earliest 
Evangelist.  He  had  the  power  of  distinguishing  between 
faith  and  not  faith  ;  had  He  an  equal  power  of  discerning 
physiological  possibilities  from  impossibilities  ?  Did  a 
kind  of  instinct  tell  Him  that  the  restoration  of  a  lost  limb 
was  not  like  the  cure  of  a  paralytic,  not  one  of  the  works 
"  prepared  for  Him  by  His  Father?"  I  do  not  suppose 
that  such  physiological  distinctions  were  intellectually 
known  by  Christ  in  His  human  nature,  any  more  than  the 
modern  discoveries  of  geology,  astronomy,  or  history. 
But  experience  and  some  kind  of  intuition  may  have 
enabled  Him  to  distinguish  those  cases  which  He  could 
heal  from  those  (a  far  more  numerous  class)  which  He 
could  not.  In  performing  these  "  mighty  works  "  of  healing, 
Jesus  appears  on  many  occasions  to  have  studiously 
avoided  that  very  publicity  which — on  the  theory  of  their 
being  intended  as  demonstrations — ought  to  have  been  a 
condition  of  their  performance.  He  takes  the  patient 
apart,  or  expressly  warns  him  to  be  silent  about  his  cure- 
acts  quite  inconsistent  with  the  demonstration-hypothesis. 
Probably  He  felt  that  these  works,  although  they  came  to 
Him  fresh  from  His  Father's  hands,  were  not  without  a 
danger.  Men  crowded  round  Him,  not  to  hear  the  truth 
but  to  see  "the  miracles."  Instead  of  recognizing  that  He 
did  only  such  works  as  "the  Father  had  prepared  for  Him 
to  do,"  they  thought  that  He  could  do  "  anything  He 
pleased."  I  think  we  ought  to  feel  that  the  very  notion  of 
such  a  power  as  this  was  absolutely  revolting  to  Jesus  : 
"  To  stop  the  sun,  to  call  down  fire  or  bread  from  heaven,  to 
stay  the  course  of  rivers,  and  cast  down  the  walls  of  cities 
— doubtless  Joshua  and  Elijah  had  done  these  works  ; 
but  they  were  not  the  works  that  the  Father  had  prepared 


224  THE  MIRACLES  OF  FEEDING       [Letter  19 

for  the  Son  to  do."  Joshua  and  Elijah  were  but  servants. 
He  was  the  Son  :  and,  being  the  Son,  He  felt  bound  to 
conform  Himself  each  moment  to  that  heavenly  Will 
which  He  ever  felt  within  Him  and  saw  before  Him, 
which  dictated  "  mighty  works  "  indeed,  but  always  works 
of  love  and  healing.  In  one  sense  He  was  entirely  free  ; 
He  could  do  all  things  because  all  things  were  possible 
with  the  Father,  and  the  Father  and  He  were  one  ;  in 
another  sense  He  felt  Himself  less  free  than  any  being 
that  had  ever  assumed  the  shape  of  man,  because  all 
other  human  creatures  had  deviated,  but  He  alone  could 
never  deviate,  no,  not  by  a  hair's  breadth,  from  the 
indwelling  Will  of  the  Father. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  then  that  I  reject  miracles,  not 
because  they  are  impossible,  not  even  because  they  are 
a  priori  improbable,  not  because  they  were  once  useless 
and  are  now  harmful  ;  but  because  the  facts  are  against 
them.  If  the  evidence  shewed  that  miracles  had  actually 
occurred,  I  should  be  prepared  to  learn  from  these 
materialized  parables  as  reverently  as  from  word-parables, 
and  to  believe  that  God— in  order  to  break  down  men's 
excessive  faith  in  the  machine-like  order  of  the  visible 
world,  and  in  order  to  divert  their  attention  from  Sequence 
t0  Will— fore-ordained  these  divergences  from  the  mono- 
tonous routine  of  things.  But  the  evidence  does  not  shew 
this.  The  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
criticism  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  researches  of 
science,  and  the  closer  study  of  the  life  of  Christ  Himself, 
all  converge  to  this  conclusion— that  Christ  conquered 
the  world,  not  by  working  miracles,  but  by  living  such  a 
life  and  dying  such  a  death  as  might  be  lived  and  died  by 
the  Son  of  God,  incarnate  as  a  Son  of  man,  and  self-sub- 
jected to  all  the  physical  limitations  of  humanity  ;  and  by 
bequeathing  to  mankind,  after  His  death,  such  a  Spirit  as 
was  correspondent  to  His  own  nature. 


THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  CHRIST  225 


XX 

My  dear , 

You  wish  to  draw  my  attention  to  the  Resurrection 
of  Christ.  "  That,"  you  say,  "  is  either  miraculous  or 
nothing.  The  arguments  by  which  you  appear  to  be 
driving  miracles  into  non-existence — expelling  them  first 
from  profane  history,  then  from  the  Old  Testament,  then 
step  by  step  from  every  part  of  the  New — cannot  make  a 
stand  at  your  convenience,  so  as  to  except  the  Resurrec- 
tion. Yet  even  St.  Paul  makes  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus 
the  basis  of  his  own  belief  and  Gospel.  If,  therefore,  that 
final  miracle  falls  to  the  ground,  the  Pauline  Gospel  falls 
with  it :  and  to  that  downfall  I  fear  your  arguments  all 
tend,  although  you  yourself  do  not  see  it  or  wish  it." 

I  entirely  deny  the  quiet  assumption  of  your  first  sen- 
tence ;  which,  as  it  stands  (but  I  am  sure  you  cannot  mean 
it),  affirms  that  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  "  is  either 
miraculous  or  nothing."  I  assert,  without  fear  of  contra- 
diction, that  if  the  phenomena  which  convinced  the 
earliest  disciples  and  St.  Paul  of  the  reality  of  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  were  not  miraculous  but  natural, 
they  constitute  the  most  wonderful  event  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  But  what  you  wish  to  say,  I  suspect,  is  this  : 
"  By  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  I  mean  the  Resurrection 
of  the  body  ;  now  if  Christ's  body  was  raised  again, 
the  act  must  have  been  miraculous."  But  how  if  the 
Resurrection  was  spiritual  ?  St.  Paul  himself  speaks  of 
a  "  spiritual  body,"  not  a  material  body,  as  rising  in  the 

Q 


226        THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  CHRIST     [Letter  20 

Resurrection.  Do  you  suppose  that  a  "spiritual  body" 
can  be  touched  ?  Or  that  St.  Paul  could  have  touched  the 
presence  that  appeared  to  him  when  he  heard  the  words, 
"Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me?"  Now  if  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  was  spiritual  and  not  material, 
there  may  have  been  no  suspension  at  all  of  the  laws  of 
material  nature,  but  simply  a  real,  spiritual  fact,  mani- 
fested to  the  world  according  to  certain  laws  by  which 
spiritual  facts  are  manifested  to  the  senses. 

But  this  theory,  you  will  reply,  although  possibly  con- 
sistent with  the  Pauline  narrative,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
Gospel  accounts  of  the  Resurrection.  It  certainly  is.  But 
it  is  quite  certain — however  unprepared  you  may  possibly 
be  for  the  statement — that  the  Gospel  accounts  of  the 
Resurrection,  taken  altogether,  cannot  be  compared,  for 
weight,  with  the  Pauline  evidence.  You  know  that  the 
oldest  Gospel  (St.  Mark  xvi.  8)  terminates  (probably 
because  it  was  left  incomplete)  with  a  vision  of  angels 
who  speak  of  the  tomb  as  empty  and  of  Christ  as  risen  ; 
but  not  a  word  about  Christ's  resurrection  itself.  The  next 
Gospel  in  chronological  order  (St.  Matthew's)  mentions 
one  appearance  of  Christ  to  some  women,  and  another  to 
some  disciples  in  Galilee  ;  but  as  to  the  last  it  is  said  that 
"  some  doubted."  Not  till  we  come  to  St.  Luke's  Gospel 
do  we  find  detailed  appearances  of  Jesus  to  disciples  in  or 
near  Jerusalem,  in  the  course  of  which  Jesus  is  present  at 
a  meal  and  offers  to  eat,  as  evidence  that  He  is  no  mere 
spirit.  In  the  last  Gospel  of  all  (St.  John's)  there  is  added 
an  appeal  to  the  sense  of  touch  ;  and  in  an  Appendix  to 
that  Gospel,  Jesus  is  represented  as  inviting  the  disciples 
to  a  repast  of  fish  and  bread,  apparently  miraculously 
supplied  and  prepared  ("they  see  a  fire  of  coals  there 
and  fish  laid  thereon,  and  bread,"  John  xxi.  9),  which  He 
distributes  to  the  disciples.  Afterwards  he  holds  a  long 
discourse  with  them.     Similarly  long  discourses  between 


Letter  20]  TO  ST.  PAUL  227 

the  risen  Saviour  and  the  disciples  are  recorded  in  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  we  know 
to  have  been  written  after  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke.  You 
see  how  unsatisfactory  all  this  is.  The  further  back 
we  go,  and  the  nearer  to  the  event,  the  more  meagre 
and  shadowy  does  the  evidence  become.  It  does  not 
appear  in  a  form  ample  and  cogent  until  a  period  so  late 
as  to  throw  irresistible  doubt  upon  its  truth.  How  can 
we  possibly  answer  the  doubter's  natural  question,  "  If 
there  was  this  unanswerable  evidence  of  the  material 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  why  was  it  suppressed  for  two 
generations  ? "  Moreover,  some  of  these  later  accounts, 
which  relate  the  handling  of  the  body  of  Jesus,  or  the 
presence  of  Jesus  at  the  breaking  of  bread,  might  be 
literal  misinterpretations  of  some  traditions  concerning 
visions  of  Christ  accompanying  the  "  handling  of  the  body 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  in  the  Lord's  Supper.  It  is  very 
significant  that  St.  Peter — whose  allusions  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  to  his  personal  evidence  concerning  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  are  of  the  briefest  kind — is  in- 
troduced by  St.  Luke  as  mentioning  only  one  definite 
kind  of  manifestation  of  Jesus  ;  and  that  is  one  in  which 
the  Apostles  "  did  eat  and  dri?ik  with  him  after  he  rose 
from  the  dead"  (Acts  x.  41).  Lastly,  there  are  traces 
of  interpolations,  or  additions,  at  a  very  early  date  in 
the  post-resurrection  chapters  of  St.  Luke,  and  probably 
of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  John  ;  and  in  dealing  with 
the  post-resurrection  narrative  of  the  life  of  Christ  some 
of  the  earliest  Fathers  quote  passages  not  found  in  our 
Gospels  but  agreeing  somewhat  with  the  suspected  addi- 
tions in  the  third  and  fourth  Gospel.  The  sum  of  all  is,  so 
far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  that  after  a  patient  and  pro- 
longed study  of  the  evidence,  with  every  desire,  and  indeed 
I  may  say  with  an  intense  anxiety  (at  one  period  of  my  life), 
to  justify  myself  in  continuing  to  believe  all  that   I  once 

Q  2 


22S        THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  CHRIST     [Letter  20 

believed,  I  now  rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  last  chapters 
of  the  Gospels  and  the  first  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  with  the  conviction  that  something  certainly 
happened  to  persuade  the  Apostles  that  their  Master  had 
verily  risen  from  the  dead,  but  what  that  something  was, 
the  evidence,  so  far  as  it  can  be  obtained  from  the  Gospels, 
does  not  enable  us  to  determine. 

But  we  have  not  yet  touched  on  the  evidence  of  St.  Paul 
and  to  this  we  now  pass.  Here  at  last  we  stand  on  firm 
ground.  Here  for  the  first  time  we  find  (in  St.  Paul's  first 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  xv.  S),  the  unquestionable 
evidence  of  an  eye-witness,  probably  recorded  several 
years  before  the  appearance  of  any  Gospel  now  extant. 
No  one  who  is  competent  to  form  an  opinion  on  the 
question  can  for  a  moment  doubt  St.  Paul's  assertion 
that  Christ  "  appeared  "  to  him,  and  that  some  such  ap- 
pearance as  that  recorded  thrice  in  the  Acts,  converted 
him  from  a  persecutor  into  an  apostle  of  Christianity. 
We  have  just  been  asking,  "  What  was  that  unknown 
something — possibly  some  manifestation  of  Jesus  after 
death — which  inspired  the  Twelve  with  the  conviction  and 
the  faculties  necessary  to  overcome  the  world?"  Now 
we  seem  to  have  found  the  answer.  An  appearance  that 
overcame  and  converted  a  recalcitrant  enemy  might  well 
satisfy  and  imbue  with  confidence  loving  disciples,  longing 
to  believe.  Especially  might  this  be  the  case  if  Jesus  had 
predicted,  as  I  believe  He  did  predict,  that  His  work 
would  not  be  cut  short  by  death,  but  that  in  Him  would 
be  fulfilled  the  saying  of  Hosea :  "  In  the  third  day  he 
shall  raise  us  up  and  we  shall  live  in  his  sight."  Although 
these  words  may  have  been  neglected  or  not  understood 
at  the  time  when  they  were  uttered,  they  may  have  well 
recurred  to  the  minds  of  the  Disciples,  after  their  Master's 
death,  with  a  powerful  effect.  To  urge  that  the  despair  of 
the  Twelve  could  be  a  greater  obstacle  than  the  vehement 


Letter  2d\  TO  ST.   PAUL  229 

and  bigoted  antagonism  of  Saul,  in  the  way  of  their 
receiving  a  vision  of  their  beloved  Master,  is  a  paradox 
so  pedantical  that  it  is  scarcely  worth  mentioning.  You 
cannot  have  forgotten,  too,  how  St.  Paul  himself  assumes 
that  the  appearances  of  the  Saviour  to  himself,  and  to  the 
original  Apostles,  were  of  the  same  kind  and  on  the  same 
footing :  "  He  appeared  unto  Cephas,  he  appeared  unto 
James,  he  appeared 'unto  five  hundred  brethren  .  .  .  and 
last  of  all  he  appeared  unto  me  also."  In  the  two  latest 
Gospels  these  "  appearances  "  have  been  magnified  into 
accounts  that  represented  Jesus  as  possessed  of  flesh  and 
bones,  as  capable  of  eating,  as  reclining  at  a  meal,  and  as 
entering  into  long  and  familiar  discourses :  naturally  we 
ask  as  to  St.  Paul' s,  the  indisputably  earliest  account  of  a 
manifestation  of  Christ,  what  traces  it  exhibits  of  similar 
distortions  and  exaggerations?  You  know  the  answer. 
There  are  no  such  traces.  The  manifestation  to  St.  Paul 
is  plainly  admitted  by  the  accounts  in  the  Acts  to  be  what 
is  commonly  called  subjective.  The  "  subjectivity  "  of 
some  of  the  earlier  manifestations  of  Jesus  to  the  disciples 
is  dimly  suggested  by  some  passages  in  the  Gospels  which 
describe  how  "  some  doubted  "  and  others  failed  to  re- 
cognize Him  ;  but  it  is  not  merely  suggested,  it  is  plainly 
expressed,  in  the  accounts  of  the  manifestation  to  St. 
Paul.  The  Apostle  is  clearly  stated  to  have  seen  a 
sight  and  heard  words,  which  other  people,  his  companions, 
with  the  same  opportunities  for  seeing  and  hearing,  did 
not  see  and  did  not  hear.  Putting  aside  some  slight  dis- 
crepancies in  the  three  accounts  given  in   the  Acts  1 — 


1  "And  the  men  that  journeyed  with  him  stood  speechless  hearing  the 
voice  but  beholding  no  man,"  Acts  ix.  7;  "And  they  that  were  with  me 
beheld  indeed  the  light,  but  they  heard  not  the  voice  of  him  that  spake  to 
me,"  ib.  xxii.  9.  Whether  Saul's  companions  saw  and  heard  nothing  except 
subjectively,  through  force  of  sympathy,  or  whether  (comp.  John  xii.  29) 
some  natural  phenomenon  may  have  been  interpreted  in  one  way  by  Saul 
and  in  another  way  by  his  companions,  cannot  now  be  determined  :  but  I 


230        THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  CHRIST     [Letter  20 

discrepancies  easily  and  naturally  explicable,  and  valuable 
as  shewing  that  the  accounts  have  not  been  arbitrarily 
harmonized— we  may  say  that  this  is  the  substantial 
result :  the  Lord  Jesus  appeared  to  St.  Paul  in  what  is 
called  a  vision.  I  myself  firmly  believe  that  there  was  a 
spiritual  act  of  Jesus  simultaneous  with  the  conveyance 
of  the  manifestation  to  the  brain  of  the  Apostle.  But 
none  the  less,— however  coincident  it  may  have  been  with 
a  spiritual  reality,  if  there  was  no  presence  of  a  material 
body,  the  manifestation  of  Jesus  to  St.  Paul  must  be  placed 
in  the  class  of  visions  :  and  if  it  was  not  seen  by  others 
who  had  the  same  physical  means  of  seeing,  it  must  be 
called,  in  some  sense,  "  subjective." 

Yet  this  vision  sufficed  for  him  and  for  the  world.  In 
the  strength  of  this  vision,  (followed,  no  doubt,  by  subse- 
quent visions  and  communings  with  the  Lord  Jesus),  the 
Thirteenth  Apostle,  the  intruder,  as  he  might  be  called — 
not  "  chosen  of  men,"  like  Matthias,  not  called  by  Christ 
in  the  flesh — did  the  great  work  of  which  you  and  I,  with 
millions  of  others,  are  now  joint  inheritors.  Think  of  it ! 
Is  it  not  a  remarkable  instance  of  "men  working  one 
thing  while  God  worketh  another  "  to  see  the  Apostles  with 
due  form  and  ceremony  electing  their  substitute  for  the 
Traitor  to  be  the  solemnly  ordained  Twelfth  Apostle, 
(henceforth  unnamed  in  Holy  Writ)  and  all  the  while 
the  Holy  Spirit  preparing  a  Thirteenth  !  And  for  this 
Thirteenth  Apostle,  who  never  looked  on  the  face  of 
Christ,  never  heard  a  single  word  of  His  doctrine,  it  has 
been  reserved  to  tell  us  perhaps  more  about  the  meaning 
of  Christ's  teaching  and  certainly  to  give  us  more  cogent 
proof  of  His  Resurrection  than  all  the  other  Apostles  and 
Evangelists  put  together  !     Truly  the  last  has  been  first  ! 

have  confined  myself  to  indisputable  fact  in  stating  that  Saul  "  saw  a  sight 
and  heard  words  which  other  people,  his  companions,  with  the  same  oppor- 
tunities for  seeing  and  hearing,  did  not  see  and  did  not  hear." 


Letter  2d\  TO  ST.  PAUL  231 

And  in  the  strength  of  his  proof  of  Christ's  Resurrection 
— mere  vision  though  we  may  call  it — this  Thirteenth 
Apostle,  in  the  face  of  persecutions  outside  the  Church, 
and  discouragements  and  jealousies  inside  the  Church, 
first  converted  the  Roman  empire  to  the  Christian  faith  ; 
then,  fifteen  centuries  afterwards,  reconverted  and  purified 
a  large  section  of  the  Church  from  mediaeval  corruptions  ; 
and  now,  as  I  believe,  some  nineteen  centuries  afterwards, 
is  on  the  point  of  still  further  purifying  the  Church  from 
antique  superstition  and  from  modern  materialism  ! 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  mighty  vision  that  originated 
these  stupendous  results  ?  Shall  we  take  the  view  of  the 
modern  scientific  young  man,  and  lecture  the  great  Apostle 
on  the  folly  of  that  indiscreet  journey  to  Damascus  at 
noon-tide,  when  his  nerves  were  a  little  over-wrought  after 
that  unpleasant  incident  of  poor  Stephen?  Shall  we 
say  it  was  all  ophthalmia  and  indigestion— that  flash  of 
blinding  light,  those  unforgettable  words,  "  Saul,  Saul, 
why  persecutest  thou  me  ?  " — all  a  mere  vision  ?  Is  a  fact 
that  changed  the  destinies  of  Europe  to  be  put  aside  with 
the  epithet  "  mere  "  ?  Would  not  even  a  materialist  stone- 
mason recognize  that  a  vision  which  built  St.  Peter's 
and  St.  Paul's  is  of  some  tangible  importance  ?  You  and 
I  and  your  scientific  young  lecturer — do  we  not  in  some 
sort  owe  our  existence  to  this  "mere  vision,"  but  for 
which  the  earth  might  be  a  chaos  of  barbarism,  England 
a  forest  scantly  populated  with  tattooed  bipeds,  and  our 
civilized  selves  non-existent  ?  Patricidal  creatures,  let 
us  not  speak  lightly  of  the  "  mere  "  author  of  our  own 
important  being  ! 

To  my  mind  the  manifestation  of  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ  appears,  not  as  an  isolated  fact,  but  as  a  part,  and 
the  central  part,  of  the  great  revelation  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  which  has  been  conveyed  by  God  to  man,  in 
accordance  with   the   laws   of  human   nature,   from   the 


232  THE  MANIFESTATION  OF  CHRIST   [Letter  20 

beginning  of  the  creation  of  the  world  by  the  medium  of 
imaginative  Faith.  In  the  same  way  the  laws  of  astronomy 
have  been  conveyed  by  God  to  man,  in  accordance  with 
the  laws  of  human  nature,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
creation  of  the  world,  by  the  medium  of  imaginative 
Reason.  I  have  shewn  in  previous  letters  that  Imagina- 
tion has  been  the  basis  of  all  that  is  worth  calling 
knowledge.  To  shew  the  bearing  of  this  on  the  mani- 
festations of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  shall  be  the  object 
of  my  next  letter. 


THE  RESURRECTION  REVEALED  233 


XXI 

My  dear , 

You  are  startled,  and  well  you  may  be,  "  at  the 
notion  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ  has  been  the  mere  off- 
spring of  theimagination."  I  am  quoting  your  words,  but 
you  have  not  quoted  mine.  I  never  said,  nor  should  I 
dream  of  saying,  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ  was  "  the 
offspring  of  the  imagination,"  any  more  than  I  should  say 
that  the  law  of  gravitation  is  "  the  offspring  of  the  imagina- 
tion," or  that  light  is  "  the  offspring  of  the  eye."  But  this 
is  just  an  ordinary  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  people 
whose  minds  are  blocked  and  choked  with  prejudice,  mis- 
understand what  is  contrary  to  their  preconceptions.  You 
have  made  up  your  mind  that  the  Imagination  is  a  kind 
of  excrescence  on  humanity,  a  faculty  independent  of  the 
Creator,  and  incapable  of  being  made  by  Him  the  medium 
of  revelation  ;  and  so  you  pervert  my  words  to  suit  your 
fancies.  But  what  I  said  was  that  Imagination  is  the  basis 
of  all  that  is  worth  calling  knowledge,  and  that,  as  God 
reveals  the  laws  of  astronomy  through  imaginative  Reason, 
so  He  has  revealed  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  through 
imaginative  Faith. 

Before  speaking  of  the  special  bearing  of  the  Imagina- 
tion upon  the  manifestation  of  Christ's  Resurrection,  let 
me  say  a  word  or  two  on  the  manner  in  which  our  human 
environment  appears  to  have  been  adapted  to  foster  the 
growth  of  this  faculty.     You  will  be  better  prepared  to 


234  THE  RESURRECTION  REVEALED     [Letter  21 

expect  great  things  from  the  Imagination  when  you 
reflect  on  the  great  things  that  have  been  wrought  by 
God  for  its  development.  You  say  that  you  do  not  under- 
stand the  statement  in  the  last  paragraph  of  my  last  letter, 
that  the  Imagination  has  been  made  "the  medium  of 
conveying  the  revelation  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul," 
and  still  less  do  you  comprehend  how  this  revelation  has 
been  going  on  "  from  the  creation  of  the  world,"  especially 
since,  during  a  large  portion  of  this  time,  there  must 
have  been  no  men  to  receive  any  revelation  at  all. 

I  said  deliberately  "from  the  creation  of  the  world," 
and  not  "  from  the  creation  of  mankind,"  because  inani- 
mate creation  itself  appears  to  me  to  bear  witness  to  a 
purpose,  from  the  first,  that  this  visible  world  should  help 
its  future  tenants  to  imagine  things  invisible.  Consider 
but  one  instance,  the  immense  influence  of  Night  upon 
the  Imagination,  and  you  will  perhaps  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  but  for  the  provision  of  darkness  ("  these 
orbs  of  light  and  shade "),  men  would  never  have 
been  led  to  a  faith  in  the  light  of  immortality.  In  the 
first  place  by  revealing  to  us  the  wonder-striking  order 
of  the  infinite  stars — which,  but  for  darkness,  would  have 
remained  for  ever  a  closed  book  to  men — Night  leads  us 
to  dream,  or  to  infer,  that  there  may  be  other  pages  still 
unturned  in  the  book  of  Nature's  mysteries,  and  stimulates 
us,  however  far  we  may  progress  in  thought,  still  to  press 
on  to  something  more  beyond ;  and  at  the  same  time, 
throwing  a  temporary  veil  over  all  the  sights  of  day,  it 
persuades  us  to  trust  that  on  the  morrow  the  veil  will 
be  removed,  and  that  in  the  meantime  all  things  will 
continue  in  their  order. 

Night  is  aided  by  sleep  and  dreams.  Slumbering  in  the 
darkness,  and  bereft  of  the  control  of  the  understanding, 
Imagination  has  reproduced  before  the  mind's  eye  the 
sights  of  daylight,  blended  together  without  thought  of 


Letter  21]      THROUGH  THE  IMAGINATION  235 

fitness,  order,  time,  or  place,  so  as  to  form  quite  new  com- 
binations which  scarcely  any  deliberate  daytime  effort 
could  have  so  vividly  depicted  :  and  in  the  long  train  of 
confused  visionary  images  there  have  sometimes  passed 
before  the  mental  eye  of  the  mourner  or  the  murderer  the 
very  shapes,  and  even  the  voices  of  the  dead,  forcing  the 
slumberer  to  start  up  and  cry,  "  They  live,  they  still  live  ; 
there  is  a  life  beyond  the  grave.''  This  trans-sepulchral 
existence  having  been  once  discerned,  the  Imagination 
has  set  to  work  to  formulate  the  laws  of  it,  and  to  map  out 
and  people  its  regions,  thus  causing  heaven  and  hell  to 
become  realities  and  (in  course  of  time)  ancestral  tradi- 
tions, and  almost  inherited  instincts.  Sometimes,  Ima- 
gination has  come  with  a  special  and  rarely  manifested 
force  to  the  aid  of  a  belief  in  a  future  life.  Not  in  dreams, 
but  in  wakeful  moments,  though  for  the  most  part  by 
night,  there  have  appeared  before  the  mind's  eye  such 
vivid  images  of  the  departed,  as  have  convinced  not  only 
the  seers  of  the  visions  but  also  their  friends — and  so,  by  a 
pervasive  influence,  all  but  a  small  minority  of  the  human 
race — that  something  real  has  been  seen,  the  spirit  of  the 
dead  made  visible  :  and  to  this  day,  in  England,  there  are 
not  wanting  men  of  the  highest  ability,  culture,  and  love 
of  truth,  who  busy  themselves  with  serious  investigations 
into  the  reality  of  apparitions. 

Does  this  seem  to  you  fanciful  ?  Surely  it  is  the  fact 
that  Night  and  its  phenomena  have  largely  influenced  the 
spiritual,  or  superstitious,  side  of  human  nature :  and  if 
you  admit  this  to  be  the  fact,  the  only  difference  between 
us  is  this,  that  to  you  this  subtle  but  universal  influence 
of  Darker  Nature  on  Man  appears  to  have  been  the 
result  of  chance,  whereas  I  think  it  came  from  God.  To 
you,  one  half  of  Time  appears  to  have  been  allowed  by 
God  to  be  spiritually  barren,  set  apart  for  the  mere 
repairing  of   the  human  material   machine :    I  do   not 


236  THE  RESURRECTION  REVEALED     [Letter  21 

believe  that  the  spiritual  making  of  Man  was  fore- 
ordained on  this  "half-time"  principle. 

If  however  you  ask  me  what  amount  of  truth  or  reality 
there  has  been  in  these  dreams  and  visions,  I  should 
reply,  as  about  poetry  and  prophecy,  that  some  of  these 
imaginations  have  represented  realities,  some  unrealities  ; 
but  that  the  total  result  to  which  they  have  led  men,  the 
belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  is  a  reality.  But 
when  I  speak  of  a  "real  vision"  of  a  spirit  or  ghost,  I 
hope  you  will  not  misunderstand  me  so  far  as  to  suppose 
that  I  could  mean  a  material,  gas-like  (though  intangible) 
form,  occupying  so  many  cubical  inches  of  space.  A 
spirit,  so  far  as  I  conceive  it,  does  not  occupy  space  ; 
nor  is  it  the  object  of  sight,  any  more  than  of  smell  or 
touch  ;  it  is,  to  me,  of  the  nature  of  a  thought,  only  a 
thought  personified,  i.e.  a  thought  capable  of  loving  and 
being  loved,  of  hating  and  being  hated.  But  though  it 
may  not  be  the  object  of  the  senses  in  the  same  way  in 
which  external  things  are,  it  may  be  manifested  to  the 
Imagination,  i.e.  the  mind's  eye,  in  such  a  way  as  to  pro- 
duce the  same  effect  as  though  it  were  an  external  object 
seen  by  the  body's  eye. 

Every  one  who  loves  truth  will  tread  with  cautious  steps 
in  this  mysterious  province  of  phantasmal  existence,  and 
carefully  measure  his  language,  knowing  that  we  are  in 
a  region  of  illusion,  exaggeration,  and  (sometimes)  of 
imposture.  But  there  does  seem  evidence  to  shew  that 
people  (mostly  perhaps  twins),  at  a  distance  from  one 
another,  have  in  some  at  present  inexplicable  manner 
influenced  one  another  so  that  the  disease  or  death  or 
calamity  of  one  has  been  simultaneously  made  known  to 
the  other  ;  and  you  have  probably  read  of  cases,  fairly 
supported,  which  would  shew  that  a  passionate  longing  on 
the  part  of  a  dying  man  to  see  some  distant  friend  may 
create  a  responsive  emotion,  if  not  an  actual  vision,  in  the 


Letter  21]     THROUGH  THE  IMAGINATION  237 

mind  of  that  friend.  We  are  so  completely  in  the  dark  as 
to  the  originating  causes  (for  physiology  tells  us  nothing 
but  the  instrumental  causes)  which  produce  our  thoughts, 
that  I  see  nothing  at  all  absurd  in  the  notion  that  every 
truthful  and  vivid  conception  of  one  human  being  in  the 
mind  of  another  upon  earth,  arises  from  some  communion 
in  the  spirit-world  between  the  spirits  of  the  two. 

So  much  for  conjectures  as  to  the  possible  reality  or 
possible  causes  of  some  classes  of  apparitions.  I  do  not 
often  myself  set  much  store  on  them,  except  so  far  as  they 
are  of  use  in  reminding  us  how  wide  is  the  province  of 
possibility,  or  how  narrow  the  province  of  certainty,  in 
the  region  of  ultimate  causation.  I  lay  stress,  not  upon 
any  conjectural  explanation  of  ghost  phenomena,  but  upon 
the  following  general  considerations,  most  of  which  are 
of  the  nature,  not  of  conjectures,  but  of  facts  :  1st,  man 
is  what  he  is,  largely  in  virtue  of  the  Imagination  ;  2nd, 
one  half  of  man's  time  and  one  half  of  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  seem  to  have  no  other  purpose  (so  far  as  man 
is  concerned)  than  to  stimulate  the  Imagination  ;  3rd, 
if  we  suppose  that  this  wonderful  world  is  under  the 
government  of  a  good  God,  although  opposed  by  an 
inferior  Evil,  we  are  led  to  infer  that  He  has  implanted 
in  us  this  faculty  of  Imagination  and  that  the  noble  aspira- 
tions and  beliefs  which  have  been  developed  by  it  have 
not  been  unmixed  delusions  ;  4th,  among  the  noblest 
of  the  beliefs  thus  developed,  has  been  the  belief  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  which,  after  being  tested  by  the 
faith  of  many  centuries,  is  at  this  day  cherished  by  the 
majority  of  civilized  mankind  ;  5th,  this  belief  has  proved 
its  truth,  so  far  as  imaginations  can  prove  themselves 
true,  by  working  well,  i.e.  it  has  raised  and  ennobled  those 
who  have  entertained  it,  and  has  made  them  (on  the 
whole)  morally  the  better  for  it ;  6th,  a  part  of  the  train- 
ing of  the  Imagination,  intimately  connected   with  the 


238  THE  RESURRECTION  REVEALED     [Letter  21 

production  of  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  has 
been  the  development  of  a  power  to  see  mental  visions, 
with  all  the  vividness  of  material  visions  ;  7th,  among 
these  visions,  some  of  the  most  common  have  been  appa- 
ritions of  the  forms  of  the  dead,  and  some  of  the  best 
authenticated  of  these  have  occurred  where  a  strong  un- 
fulfilled desire  has  possessed  the  departed  in  the  moment 
of  dying  and  where  the  seer  of  the  apparition  has  been 
bound  by  close  ties  to  the  dead. 

These  are  the  considerations,  mostly  facts — you  may 
dispute  some  of  them,  but  not  all  I  think — in  the  light  of 
which  I  should  endeavour  to  illustrate  the  manifestation 
of  Christ  to  His  disciples  after  death.  To  these  facts  I 
merely  added  the  conjecture  that  possibly  there  may  be 
something  besides  the  mere  movement  of  our  brains  that 
produces  these  images  of  the  departed,  something — I 
will  not  say  external,  for  a  spirit,  if  independent  of  place, 
can  be  neither  external  to  us  nor  internal — but  some  act  in 
the  invisible  world  of  spirits  corresponding  to  every  appa- 
rition upon  the  visible  world.  But  I  did  not  pledge  myself 
to  such  a  theory.  I  only  insisted  that  the  whole  revelation 
of  poetry  and  religion  through  the  Imagination  has  been 
of  such  inestimable  importance  to  man  that  we  cannot 
put  it  all  aside  as  false  because  imaginative  ;  we  must 
regard  it  with  reverence  and  be  prepared  to  find  that  in 
the  central  event  of  the  purest  religion  of  all,  the  Imagi- 
nation has  been  made  the  medium  of  the  culminating 
revelation  of  spirit  and  truth.  Indeed,  if  the  spiritual 
world  is  real  and  near,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  God 
— without  breaking  the  Laws  of  Nature  and  without 
unfitting  us  for  life  in  a  world  of  sense — could  better  give 
us  glimpses  of  an  invisible  environment,  than  by  causing 
it  to  press  in,  as  it  were,  upon  the  Imagination,  so  that 
the  mind's  eye,  thus  stimulated  by  real  invisibilities,  may, 
for  the  time,  supplant  the  bodily  faculty  of  sight,  and 


Letter  21]      THROUGH  THE  IMAGINATION  239 

afterwards  leave  behind  in  us  a  permanent  suggestion 
that,  as  there  is  a  material  world  corresponding  to  the 
bodily  eye,  so  there  is  a  mind's  world  corresponding  to 
the  mind's  eye.  With  this  pre-conception  I  will  ask  you 
to  approach  the  narrative  of  Christ's  Resurrection  as  I 
shall  endeavour  to  set  it  forth  in  my  next  letter  from  the 
natural  point  of  view. 


24o  THE  RESURRECTION 


XXII 

My  dear , 

My  last  letter  broke  off  rather  abruptly  with  a 
promise  to  do  my  best  to  set  forth  hereafter  the  Resur- 
rection of  Christ  as  it  may  be  regarded  from  a  natural 
point  of  view. 

Looking  at  the  facts  in  this  light,  we  have  in  the  first 
place  to  set  before  ourselves  the  short  life  of  One  of 
whom  we  must  merely  say  that  He  was  unique  in  the 
goodness  and  grandeur  of  His  character,  and  that  He 
died  with  the  unfulfilled  purpose  of  redeeming  mankind 
from  sin,  deserted  for  the  moment  by  the  few  disciples 
who  had  adhered  to  Him  almost  to  the  last.  He  died, 
for  the  time,  the  most  pitiable,  the  most  despair-inspiring 
death  that  the  world  has  ever  witnessed,  asking  in  His 
last  moments  why  He  had  been  "  forsaken  "  by  God.  But 
His  death — pardon  me  if  I  deviate  for  one  moment  from 
material  to  celestial  facts,  provided  that  I  never  deviate 
into  miracles — was  really  the  triumph  over  death,  and 
His  Spirit  had  in  reality  (we  speak  in  a  metaphor)  broken 
open  the  bars  of  the  grave  and  ascended  to  the  throne  of 
the  Father  carrying  with  Himself  the  promise  of  the 
ultimate  redemption  of  mankind.  This  was  now  to  be 
revealed  to  the  world  as  the  culminating  vision  in  that 
continuous  Revelation  through  the  Imagination  by  which 
the  minds  of  men  had  been  led  to  look  beyond  this  life 
to  a  life  that  knows  no  end.  Speaking  terrestrially,  we 
must  say  that  the  influence  of  Jesus,  love,  faith,  remorse, 


Letter  22]  REGARDED  NATURALLY  241 

were  moulding  the  hearts  of  the  disciples  on  earth  to 
receive  the  truth  ;  speaking  celestially  we  may  say  that 
Jesus  bent  down  from  His  throne  by  the  right  hand  of 
God  to  prepare  them  for  the  manifestation  of  His  victory. 
What  in  this  crisis  exactly  befell  on  earth  we  shall  never 
know.  The  tradition  that  Jesus  appeared  on  the  third 
day,  or  after  three  clays,  to  His  disciples,  is  so  naturally 
derived  from  the  prophecy  of  Hosea  "  on  the  third  day 
he  shall  raise  us  up  "—a  prophecy  probably  applied  by 
Jesus  to  Himself— that  we  can  place  no  reliance  on  its 
numerical  accuracy.  Nor  do  we  know  exactly  where 
Jesus  first  appeared  to  His  disciples.  The  oldest 
tradition1  declared  that  they  were  to  "go  to  Galilee" 
after  their  Master's  death,  and  that  He  had  promised  to 
guide  them  thither  ;  but  a  subsequent  account  interpreted 
the  words  about  "Galilee"  quite  differently.2  In  any 
case,  before  many  days  had  elapsed,  to  some  one  disciple, 
perhaps  to  Mary  Magdalene — out  of  whom  there  had 
been  cast  "  seven  devils  " — it  was  given  to  see  the  Lord 
Jesus. 

Here,  by  the  way,  we  must  note  the  remarkable  pro- 
minence given  in  all  the  Gospels  to  the  part  played  by 
women  in  receiving  the  first  manifestations  of  Christ's 
Resurrection.  Writers  who  were  careful  to  avoid  giving 
occasion  for  unbelief  might  naturally  have  desired  to  give 
less  prominence  to  the  testimony  of  highly  imaginative 
and  impressionable  witnesses  ;  and  indeed  St.  Paul,  in 
his  brief  list  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus  (possibly  because 
writing  as  an  Apostle  who  had  seen  Christ,  he  desired  to 
confine  himself  almost  entirely  to  manifestations  witnessed 
by  Apostles),  makes  no  mention  of  the  appearances  to 
women  :    their  prominence,  therefore,  in  all  the  Gospels, 

1  Mark xvi.  7  :  Matthew  xxviii.  7  :    "He  goeth  before  yon  into  Galilee." 
-  Luke  xxiv.  6:     "Remember  how  he  spake  unto  you  while  he  was  yet 
in  Galilee." 

R 


242  THE  RESURRECTION  [Letter  22 

testifies  strongly  to  the  early  and  universal  acceptance  of 
the  tradition  that  women  were  the  first  witnesses  to  the 
risen  Saviour.  But  to  resume.  The  news  quickened 
the  faith  even  of  those  disciples  who  had  not  seen  and 
who  could  not  yet  believe ;  and  presently  apparitions 
were  seen — a  thing  almost,  though  (I  believe)  not  quite, 
unique  in  visions — by  several  disciples  together.  Pro- 
bably the  most  frequent  occasions  for  these  manifestations 
were  when  they  had  met  together  to  partake  of  the  body 
and  blood  of  their  Master  ;  and  it  was  in  the  moment 
of  the  breaking  of  the  bread  that  the  image  of  the 
Living  Bread  was  flashed  before  them,  appearing  in  the 
form  of  Jesus  giving  Himself  for  them,  and  uttering  words 
of  blessing,  comfort,  or  exhortation,  audible  to  the  ears  of 
the  faithful,  who  at  the  same  moment  were  handling  His 
body  and  touching  the  blood  which  flowed  from  His  side. 
At  other  times  he  appeared  before  them  with  other  mes- 
sages ;  to  the  women  he  seemed  to  wave  them  off  as  if 
deprecating  a  too  close  approach,  or  as  if  bidding  them  go 
hence  and  carry  the  glad  tidings  to  the  Apostles  ;  others 
He  seemed  to  rebuke  for  their  want  of  faith  ;  in  the  sight 
of  others,  His  hands,  outstretched  in  the  attitude  of  part- 
ing benediction,  seemed  to  send  forth  His  disciples  to 
preach  His  word  with  promise  of  His  presence ;  but 
how  these  messages  were  conveyed,  whether  by  gesture 
simply,  or  by  spiritual  voice  (as  in  the  case  of  St.  Paul), 
audible  perhaps  to  one,  and  by  him  interpreted  to  the  rest, 
or  audible  to  all  that  were  in  the  same  faithful  sympathy — 
these  and  other  details  cannot  now  be  determined. 

"  Why  did  not  the  adversaries  of  Christ  confront  His 
followers  by  producing  the  body  from  the  tomb,  thus  dis- 
proving the  story  that  His  body  had  risen  from  the 
dead  ? "  The  tomb  was  probably  empty.  That  is  pro- 
bable for  two  reasons,  first  because  the  earliest  traditions 
agree  that  the  women  going  to  the  tomb  found  the  stone 


Letter  22]  REGARDED  NATURALLY  243 

rolled  away ;  and  secondly,  because  the  adversaries  of 
Jesus  appear  to  have  themselves  subsequently  circulated 
a  story  that  the  disciples  had  stolen  away  the  body.  This 
they  would  hardly  have  done  if  they  had  known  that 
their  own  explanation  could  be  at  any  moment  refuted  by 
opening  the  tomb,  which  would  have  shewn  the  body  still 
lying  there.  Possibly  some  of  the  enemies  of  Jesus  had 
themselves  removed  the  body,  influenced  by  some  of  those 
predictions  of  Jesus  about  Himself,  which,  though  they 
had  not  the  power  to  inspire  the  disciples  with  faith  in  the 
moment  of  His  death,  had  power  to  inspire  His  enemies 
with  a  vague  fear.  Being  almost  surprised  in  the  act,  they 
may  not  have  had  time  to  replace  the  great  stone  at  the 
entrance  of  the  tomb,  when  the  women  arrived ;  if 
so,  the  action  of  Christ's  own  enemies  prepared  the  way 
for  the  belief  in  His  resurrection  by  exhibiting  to  the 
sorrowing  disciples  the  stone  rolled  away  and  the  empty 
sepulchre.  First  came  the  cry,  "  He  is  not  here,"  and 
that  prepared  the  way  for  "  He  is  risen." 

How  long  the  visionary  period  lasted  we  cannot  tell. 
It  is  almost  certain  that  there  were  many  more  visions 
than  the  five  recorded  by  St.  Paul  (1  Cor.  xv.  6,  7).  At 
least  one  of  St.  Paul's  five  visions,  that  to  St.  James,  is 
not  mentioned  in  any  of  our  extant  Gospels  ;  on  the 
other  hand  St.  Paul  omits  some  of  those  peculiar  to  the 
third  or  fourth  Gospels,  as  well  as  the  manifestations  to 
the  women.  Perhaps  the  visions  were  so  many,  and  all 
so  like  each  other,  that  the  Church  found  it  difficult  to 
select  which  to  record  ;  and  each  Evangelist  chose  those 
which  appeared  to  him  fittest,  either  because  they  were 
the  earliest,  or  because  the  witnesses  were  numerous,  or 
because  they  were  apostolic,  or  because  they  contained 
the  most  striking  proof  of  a  veritable  resurrection.  We 
may  therefore  easily  accept  the  statement  that  the  period 
of  visions  lasted  for  forty  days  or  even  for  a  much  longer 

R  2 


244  THE  RESURRECTION  {Letter  22 

time,  probably  till  the  disciples  felt  emboldened  to  take  an 
active  course  in  preaching  the  Gospel. 

Concerning  Christ's  manifestation  to  St.  Paul  I  have 
said  enough  in  my  last  letter— if  anything  needed  to  be 
said— to  shew  that  it  must  have  been  of  the  nature  of  a 
vision,  and  (in  a  sense)  "  subjective."  But  it  differs  from  the 
rest  in  that  it  was  made  to  an  enemy  while  the  other 
manifestations  were  made  to  devoted  disciples.  Love, 
remorse,  faith,  affection,  stimulated  the  Apostles  to  cry, 
"  He  cannot  have  died,"  and  prepared  their  souls  to  see 
the  image  of  Jesus  risen  ;  but  where,  it  may  be  asked, 
was  the  spiritual  preparation  in  the  heart  of  St.  Paul  to 
receive  such  a  vision  ?  You  may  trace  it  in  the  words 
which  St.  Paul  heard  from  Jesus  :  "  It  is  hard  for  thee 
to  kick  against  the  pricks."  They  shew  that  the  future 
Apostle  had  been  struggling,  and  struggling  hard,  against 
the  compunctions  of  conscience.  Being  a  lover  of  truth 
from  his  childhood,  he  was  prepared  to  give  up  all  for  its 
sake  ;  but  recent  events  had  made  him  ask  whether  he 
was  not  fighting  against  the  truth  instead  of  for  the  truth. 
He  had  been  persecuting  the  Christians  ;  but  their  faith  and 
patience  had  made  him  doubt  whether  they  might  not  be 
right  and  he  wrong.  When  the  first  martyr  Stephen 
looked  up  to  heaven  and  there  saw  Jesus  seated  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  then  or  soon  afterwards,  the  question 
must  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  the  persecutor,  "  What 
if  the  follower  of  the  Nazarene  was  speaking  truth? 
What  if  the  crucified  Jesus  whom  I  am  now  persecuting 
was  really  exalted  to  God's  throne?"  Such  was  the 
struggle  through  which  Saul's  mind  was  passing  when  the 
Spirit  of  Jesus,  acting  indirectly  through  the  constancy 
and  faith  of  His  persecuted  disciples,  having  first  insensibly 
permeated  and  undermined  the  barriers  of  Pharisaic 
training  and  education,  now  swept  all  obstacles  before 
it   in   an   instantaneous   deluge    of  conviction   that  this 


Letter  22]  REGARDED  NATURALLY  245 

persecuted  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  At  that  same  moment 
the  Messiah  Himself  (who  during  these  last  months  and 
weeks  of  spiritual  conflict  had  been  bending  down  closer 
and  closer  to  the  predestined  Apostle  from  His  throne  in 
heaven)  now  burst  upon  the  convert's  sight  on  earth. 

But  I  think  I  hear  you  saying,  "  All  this  sounds  well  ; 
but  he  has  repeatedly  described  these  visions  of  the  risen 
Saviour  as  subjective  :  how  then  can  he  call  them  real  ? 
What  is  real?"  Let  me  refer  you  to  the  paper  of 
Definitions  which  I  enclosed  in  a  previous  letter.1 

1.  Absolute  reality  cannot  be  comprehended  by  men,  and 
can  only  be  apprehended  as  God,  or  in  God,  by  Faith. 

2.  Amo?ig  objects  of  sensation,  those  are  (relatively) 
real  which  present  similar  sejisations  i?i  similar  circum- 
stances. 

Now  if  you  try  to  regard  the  manifestation  of  the 
risen  Christ  under  the  second  head,  as  an  "  object  of 
sensation,"  you  must  pronounce  it  "  unreal,"  inasmuch 
as  it  would  not  "  present  similar  sensations  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances ; "  by  which  I  mean  that,  with  similar  oppor- 
tunities of  observation,  different  persons  (believers,  for 
example,  and  unbelievers)  would  not  have  derived  similar 
sensations  from  it.  But  your  conclusion  would  be  false  be- 
cause you  started  from  a  false  premiss  :  these  manifesta- 
tions cannot  be  classed  "among  objects  of  sensation." 

The  movements  of  the  risen  Saviour  appear  to  me  to 
have  been  the  movements  of  God  ;  His  manifestations  to 
the  faith  of  the  Apostles  were  divine  acts,  passing  direct 
from  God  to  the  souls  of  men.  Since  therefore  these 
manifestations  belonged  to  the  class  of  things  which  "  can 
only  be  apprehended  as  God,  or  in  God,  by  faith,"  I  call 
them  "  absolute  realities  " — as  much  more  real  than  flesh 
and  blood,  as  God  Himself  is  more  real  than  the  paper 
on  which  I  am  now  writing. 

1  See  Dcjinitions  at  the  end  of  the  book. 


246  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION 


XXIII 

My  dear , 

I  am  not  surprised  to  hear  that  you  consider  the 
theory  above  described  of  Christ's  resurrection,  "  vague, 
shadowy,  and  unsatisfying."  But  as  in  the  very  same 
letter  you  say  that  you  are  quite  convinced  of  the  un- 
historical  nature  of  the  account  of  the  resurrection  ot 
Christ's  material  body,  I  think  you  ought  not  to  dismiss 
the  subject  without  giving  more  attention  than  you  have 
given  as  yet  to  it.  As  a  student  of  history  and  as  a  young 
man  bent  on  attaining  such  knowledge  as  can  be  attained 
concerning  the  certainties  or  probabilities  that  have  the 
most  important  bearing  on  the  life  and  conduct  of  myriads 
of  your  fellow-creatures,  you  ought  at  least  to  ask  yourself 
what  better  explanation  you  have  to  offer  of  the  marvellous 
phenomena  of  the  Christian  Church  and  in  particular  of 
St.  Paul's  part  in  spreading  Christianity. 

I  sympathize  with  the  "  sense  of  bathos,"  as  you  call  it, 
which  comes  over  you  when  you  hear  that  the  phenomena 
of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  are  to  be  explained  by  a 
study  of  the  growth  and  development  of  the  revelation 
given  to  mankind  through  the  Imagination.  I  sympathize 
with  you  ;  but  I  sympathize  with  you  as  I  should  with  a 
child  who  might  be  standing  by  Elijah's  side  at  the  time 
when  the  prophet  saw  his  never-to-be-forgotten  vision. 
That  child  would  feel,  no  doubt,  "  a  sense  of  bathos " 
because  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire,  nor  in  the  whirl- 
wind, nor  in  the  earthquake,  but  in  the  still  small  voice. 


Letter  2$    THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  247 

You  are  in  the  childish  stage  of  susceptibility  to  anything 
that  is  noisy  and  big  ;  you  have  not  been  taught  by 
experience  and  thought  to  appreciate  the  divineness  of 
things  obvious,  ordinary,  and  quiet  ;  above  all  you  have 
not  yet  learned  to  revere  your  own  nature  nor  to  acknow- 
ledge (except  with  your  lips)  that  you  are  made  in  the 
image  of  God.  Retaining  still  a  keen  recollection  of  the 
pain  with  which  I  passed  through  that  stage  myself,  I  have 
neither  the  inclination,  nor  the  right,  to  despise  your  pre- 
sent condition  of  mind  ;  but  I  believe,  if  you  will  still  keep 
the  question  open  in  your  mind,  and  if  you  will  meditate  a 
little  now  and  then  on  the  frequency,  or  I  may  say  the 
universality,  of  illusion  in  the  conveyance  of  all  the  highest 
truth,  you  will  gradually  come,  as  I  came,  to  perceive  that 
the  essence  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  is  that  His  Spirit 
should  have  really  triumphed  over  death,  and  not  that 
His  body  should  have  risen  from  the  grave. 

No  doubt  you  would  be  much  more  impressed  if  the 
tangible  body  of  some  dead  friend  of  yours,  after  being 
buried  in  the  earth,  had  appeared  to  certain  witnesses  and 
touched  them,  and  eaten  in  their  company,  than  if  a  vivid 
apparition  of  the  friend  had  appeared  to  the  same  wit- 
nesses ;  but  I  think  you  would  much  more  easily  believe 
the  latter  than  the  former  ;  and  you  might  be  more  im- 
pressed by  a  strong  conviction  of  the  latter  than  by  a 
doubtful,  timid,  clinging  to  the  former.  I  can  hardly  think 
that  if  you  had  received  several  accounts  from  independent 
witnesses,  of  apparitions  of  this  kind  resulting  in  a  mar- 
vellous change  of  character  in  all  who  had  seen  them,  you 
would  at  once  put  them  aside  simply  because  they  might 
be  called  in  some  sense  natural.  The  very  fact  of  their 
being  natural  would  lead  you  to  consider  how  strange 
must  have  been  the  causes  that  had  produced  such 
strange  results  ;  how  powerful  must  have  been  the  per- 
sonality that  had  thus  forced  itself  on  the  mental  retina 


248  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION     [Letter  23 

of  the  seers  of  the  apparition ;  and  if  something  important 
had  followed  from  such  a  vision,  say,  for  example,  the 
writing  of  a  great  poem,  or  the  foundation  of  a  noble 
empire,  I  cannot  think  that  you  would  set  down  the  vision 
as  a  negligible  trifle. 

But  you  feel,  I  dare  say,  that,  though  you  might  be 
impressed  by  the  stories  of  such  an  apparition,  you  could 
not  feel  certain  that  the  apparition  represented  any  reality  ; 
there  would  be  no  definite  proof  that  the  witnesses  of  the 
apparition  were  not  under  the  influence  of  a  delusion. 
Well,  I  will  admit  that  there  would  be  no  proof  of  the 
ordinary  kind,  that  is  to  say,  no  proof  such  as  is  con- 
veyed through  the  senses  about  ordinary  terrestrial  phe- 
nomena ;  but  I  think  you  might  feel  certain  ;  only  it  would 
be  that  kind  of  certainty  which  is  largely  bred  from  Faith 
and  Hope.  And  this  sort  of  certainty,  and  no  other, 
appears  to  me  that  which  was  intended  to  be  produced  by 
the  Resurrection  of  Christ.  His  manifestations  were  un- 
seen and  unheard  save  by  the  eye  and  ear  of  Faith.  If 
the  proof  of  His  resurrection  had  not  depended  upon  Faith, 
then  the  Roman  soldiers  would  have  seen  His  material 
body  miraculously  issuing  from  the  shattered  sepulchre, 
and  the  companions  of  Saul  would  have  both  seen  Christ 
and  understood  the  voice  that  cried,  "  Saul,  Saul,  why 
persecutest  thou  me?"  If  we  could  ascertain  exactly  the 
historical  basis  for  the  account  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  of 
Christ's  manifestation  to  the  doubting  Thomas,  we  should 
probably  find — supposing  that  we  were  really  justified  in 
treating  the  account  as  historical — that  there  was  in 
Thomas  a  strong  desire  to  believe,  combined  with  a 
strong  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  attaining  adequate 
proof.  As  in  the  life  of  Christ,  so  in  the  resurrection  of 
Christ,  conviction  appears  never  to  have  been  forced  on 
any  entirely  unwilling  unbeliever. 

In  order  to  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  it  is  not 


Letter  23]     THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  249 

enough  to  be  convinced  that  the  evidence  is  honest  and 
genuine,  and  that  the  witnesses  could  not  be  deceived  ; 
that  kind  of  belief  savours  of  the  law-court,  and  there  is 
nothing  spiritual  in  it ;  but  the  man  who  truly  and  spiritu- 
ally accepts  Christ's  resurrection  is  he  who  says  to  himself 
as  he  reviews  the  life  of  Christ  and  the  history  of  the 
Church:  "  Being  what  He  was,  and  having  done  the  work 
that  He  has  done,  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ought  not  to 
have  succumbed  to  death.  If  there  is  any  evidence  to 
shew  that  the  veil  of  the  invisible  has  been  so  far  thrown 
back,  be  it  for  a  moment,  as  to  shew  me  Jesus  in  the 
spiritual  world  still  living  and  triumphant  over  death, 
my  conscience  opens  its  arms  at  once  to  embrace  that 
belief."  And  there  is  this  advantage  in  basing  your  faith 
on  the  spiritual  resurrection  of  Jesus,  that  you  keep  the 
region  of  faith  distinct  from  the  region  of  disputable  testi- 
mony. If  you  rest  your  hopes  on  the  material  resurrec- 
tion, that  is  a  question  of  doubtful  evidence.  Your  heart 
says,  "  Oh  that  it  might  be  true  ! "  Your  brain  says,  "  I 
cannot  honestly  say  that  I  think  it  is  true."  Hence  a 
constant  conflict  between  heart  and  brain,  while  you  are 
forced  again  and  again  to  ask  yourself,  "  Must  I  be  dis- 
honest in  order  that  I  may  persuade  myself  that  I  am 
happy  ?  And  even  if  I  can  honestly  believe  in  the  material 
resurrection  to-day,  how  do  I  know  that  some  new  evidence 
— the  discovery  of  some  new  Gospel  for  example — may 
not  overturn  my  belief  to-morrow  ?  " 

But  the  life  and  doctrine  of  Christ,  the  conversion 
and  letters  of  St.  Paul,  the  growth  and  victories  of  the 
Church,  and  the  present  power  of  Christ's  Spirit  are 
facts  that  can  never  be  overthrown  ;  and  if  you  say,  "On 
the  basis  of  these  indisputable  facts,  considered  as  a  part 
of  the  evolution  and  training  of  mankind  I  rest  my  hope 
and  my  faith  that  Jesus  has  conquered  death  and  still 
lives  and  works  among  us  and  for  us  " — why  then  you  rest 


250  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION     {Letter^ 

on  a  basis  that  cannot  be  shaken.  And  surely  such  a 
faith  is  more  strong,  more  spiritual,  more  comforting, 
yes,  and  more  certain  too,  than  a  "  knowledge "  which 
you  know  in  your  own  heart  to  be  no  knowledge  !  How 
long  will  mankind  be  content  to  be  ignorant  that  the 
HALF  which  constitutes  truth  is  worth  more  than  the 
WHOLE  which  is  made  up  of  truth  and  truth's  integu- 
mentary illusion  !  How  many  there  are  to  whom  the 
saying  of  old  Hesiod  is  still  unmeaning  : — 

Alas  tho?i  knorv'st  not,  silly  soul, 
How  7/iuch  the  half  exceeds  the  whole  I 

You  cannot  obtain,  and  must  not  expect  to  obtain,  any 
demonstrative  proof  of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  any 
more  than  you  can  obtain  a  demonstrative  proof  of  the 
existence  of  a  God  :  yet  you  can  feel  as  strong  and  as 
sincere  a  conviction  of  the  former  fact  as  of  the  latter. 

It  is  curious  that  St.  Paul's  parallel  between  the  Resur- 
rection of  Christ  and  that  of  men  should  be  so  habitually 
overlooked.  He  assumes,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  simi- 
larity, almost  an  identity,  between  the  Resurrection  of  men 
and  the  Resurrection  of  Christ :  "  If  there  is  no  resurrection 
of  the  dead  neither  hath  Christ  been  raised,"  and  again  : 
"  Now  hath  Christ  been  raised  from  the  dead,  the  first 
fruits  of  them  that  are  asleep."  This  reasoning  holds  ex- 
cellently, if  the  Resurrection  is  to  be  the  same  for  us  as  it 
was  for  our  Saviour,  a  spiritual  Resurrection,  and  if  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ  visibly  revealed  the  universal  law 
which  shall  apply  to  all  who  are  animated  by  the  Spirit 
of  God.  But  if  Christ's  Resurrection  was  of  a  quite 
different  kind,  if  it  was  a  bodily  stepping  out  of  the  tomb 
three  days  after  burial,  how  can  this  be  called  the  "  first 
fruits  "  of  the  Resurrection  of  men  whose  bodies  will  all 
decay  and  for  whom  therefore  no  such  stepping  out  from 
the  tomb  can  ever  be  anticipated  ?    The  best,  the  truest, 


Later  23]    THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  251 

the  most  comforting  belief  in  the  end  will  be  found  to  be 
that  Jesus  was  "  put  to  death  in  the  flesh  but  qicickened 
(not  in  the  flesh  but)  in  the  spirit:'  And  as  it  was  with 
Him,  so  we  believe  it  will  be  with  us. 

But  perhaps  you  will  remind  me  that  one  of  the  Creeds 
mentions  "  the  Resurrection  of  the  body,"  and  that  St.  Paul 
anticipates  the  Resurrection,  not  of  a  "  spirit,"  but  of  "  a 
spiritual  body;'"  and  you  may  ask  me  what  I  infer  from 
this.  I  for  my  part  infer  that  St.  Paul  desired  to  guard 
against  the  notion  that  the  dead  lose  their  identity  and 
are  merged  in  God  or  in  some  other  essence  ;  he  wished 
to  convey  tovhis  hearers  that  they  would  still  retain  their 
individuality,  the  power  of  loving  and  of  being  loved  ;  pos- 
sibly also  he  wished  to  suggest  a  life  of  continued  activity 
in  the  service  of  God  ;  and  in  order  to  express  this  he 
used  such  language  (metaphorical  of  course)  as  would 
unmistakeably  imply  that  identity  would  be  preserved, 
and  activity  would  be  possible.  But  he  took  care  to  guard 
his  language  against  materialistic  misinterpretation  by 
insisting  that  the  body  would  be  "  spiritual"  and  therefore 
invisible  to  the  earthly  eye  and  cognizable  only  by  the 
spirit.  The  new  body,  he  says,  is  "  a  building  from  God," 
"  a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal;  "  and  he  prefaces 
this  by  saying  "  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal ; 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal"  Hereby  he 
clearly  implies  that  the  new  body  will  be  "  not  seen." 
Elsewhere  he  tells  us  that  "  the  things  prepared  by  God" 
for  them  that  love  Him  (and  of  course  he  includes  in  these 
the  "  building  from  God,  the  house  not  made  with  hands  ") 
are  such  as  eye  "  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  nor  have 
they  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  ;  but  God  hath  re- 
vealed them  unto  us  by  the  Spirit;  "  and  again,  "  the 
things  of  God  none  knoweth  save  the  Spirit  of  God,'1 
which  has  been  imparted  to  the  faithful. 

To  speak  honestly,  I  must  add  that,  even  if  I  found  St. 


252  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION     [Letter  23 

Paul  had  committed  himself  repeatedly  to  any  theory  of 
a  material  or  semi-material  Resurrection,  consonant  with 
the  feelings  of  his  times,  I  should  not  have  felt  bound  to 
place  a  belief  in  a  materialistic  detail  of  this  kind  upon 
the  same  high  and  authoritative  level  as  the  belief  in  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  any  other  general 
and  spiritual  article  of  faith.  But  I  find  no  such  material- 
ism in  St.  Paul.  He  appears  to  me  to  say  consistently, 
1st,  that  Christ's  Resurrection  was  a  type  of  ("the  first 
fruits  of")  the  Resurrection  of  mankind  ;  2nd,  that  in 
contrast  to  the  first  man  Adam,  the  earthy,  who  became 
a  living  soul,  the  last  Adam,  the  heavenly,  became  a  "life- 
giving  spirit ; "  3rd,  that,  as  we  have  borne  the  image  of 
the  earthy,  so  we  shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  hea- 
venly ;  4th,  that  the  "  body  "  of  the  faithful  after  death  will 
be  "  spiritual,"  just  as  the  Church  of  God  is  "  a  spiritual 
house,"  and  the  sacrifices  of  the  saints  are  " spiritual 
sacrifices."  There  is  no  more  ground  for  thinking  that 
St.  Paul  supposed  that  we  should  hereafter  have  spiritual 
hands,  or  be  spiritual  bipeds,  than  for  thinking  that  he 
supposed  the  sacrifices  of  the  Church  to  be  spiritual 
sheep,  or  the  temple  of  the  Church  to  be  composed  of 
celestial  stones.  After  our  Resurrection,  we  are  still  to 
be  conscious  of  God's  past  love,  still  to  rejoice  in  His 
present  and  never-ending  love,  still  to  be  capable  of 
glorifying  and  serving  God,  of  loving  as  well  as  of  being 
loved — this  St.  Paul's  theory  of  the  "  spiritual  body"  cer- 
tainly implies  ;  and  it  need  not  imply  more.  And  what  our 
Resurrection  will  be,  that  Christ's  Resurrection  was. 

The  ordinary  fancies  about  the  Resurrection  teem  with 
absurdities,  and  are  redeemed  from  being  ridiculous,  only 
because  they  all  spring  from  the  natural  and  reasonable 
desire  that  we  may  hereafter  preserve  our  identity.  But 
they  ought  to  be  suppressed  if  they  create,  as  I  fear  they 
create,  additional  difficulties  in  the  way  of  conceiving, 


Letter  23]     THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  253 

and  believing  in,  a  future  life.  I  do  not  wish  to  scoff  at 
the  popular  views  ;  but  it  is  important  that  those  who 
adopt  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  Resurrection  should 
realize  the  unnecessary  and  grotesque  inconsistencies  with 
which  they  obscure  the  Christian  faith.  Popular  Christi- 
anity appears  generally  to  accept  a  sensuous  paradise, 
only  excluding  what  some  may  deem  the  coarser  senses, 
the  smell,  touch,  and  taste.  But  what  is  the  special  merit 
of  the  other  two  senses,  hearing  and  seeing,  that  they 
alone  should  be  allowed  places  in  Paradise?  And  this 
visible,  semi-spiritual  body  upon  which  the  vulgar  fancy 
so  insists— what  purpose  will  it  serve  ?  "  The  purposes 
of  recognition  between  friends."  Then  it  will  be  like  the 
old  material  body  of  the  departed— at  what  period  of  his 
existence  ?  Shall  he  be  represented  as  a  youth  of  twenty 
or  a  man  of  forty,  or  of  fifty,  or  as  a  child  of  ten  ?  And 
how  as  to  the  body  of  one  who  was  deformed,  maimed,  or 
hideously  misshapen  and  ugly  ?  "It  would  be  a  purified 
likeness,  summarizing,  as  it  were,  every  period  of  life,  so 
that  it  would  be  recognizable,  not  indeed  by  our  eyes  but 
by  those  of  spiritual  beings."  That  is  conceivable  :  but 
why  all  this  trouble  to  obtain  a  visible  body  that  shall 
make  recognition  difficult,  when  recognition  can  be  con- 
ceived so  much  more  easily  as  the  result  of  mere  spiritual 
communion  ?  Keep  by  all  means  the  language  of  the 
Apocalypse  and  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  in  order  to 
describe  in  poetry  the  condition  of  the  blessed  dead ;  but 
remember  that  it  is  the  language  of  poetry  ;  and  let  every 
such  use  of  words  be  concluded  (as  with  a  doxology)  by 
the  thought,  "  Thus  will  it  be,  only  far  better,  infinitely 
better  ;  for  God  is  love  ;  and  our  future  communion  with 
the  love  of  God  will  be  a  height  of  happiness  such  as  no 
power  of  sense  can  reveal,  and  only  the  spirit-guided  soul 
can  faintly  apprehend." 

But  perhaps  you  will  say  "  You  are  ready  enough  to 


254  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION     [Letter  23 

attack  other  people's  notions  about  the  semi-material 
resurrection  ;  but  you  are  not  equally  ready  to  explain 
your  own  notions  about  a  spiritual  resurrection.  You 
cannot  even  tell  us  what  a  spiritual  body  is,  except  that 
it  has  the  power  of  loving  and  being  loved."  Precisely 
so  ;  I  am  quite  ignorant.  Yet  in  my  knowledge  of  this 
matter  I  am  superior  to  a  very  great  number  of  other 
theologians.  For  they  think  they  know,  whereas  I  know 
that  neither  I  nor  they  know.  Let  me  go  a  little  further 
in  my  confession  of  ignorance  and  admit  that  I  do  not 
really  possess  knowledge  about  a  number  of  other  matters 
about  which  many  profess  with  great  glibness  to  know 
everything.  I  am  certain  that  I  exist  ;  but  I  doubt  whether 
I  can  analyse  and  explain  the  reasons  for  my  certainty, 
and  I  am  quite  sure  I  cannot  prove  my  existence  by  logic. 
If  I  am  pressed  for  a  proof,  I  should  say  (as  I  have  stated 
in  a  previous  letter)  that  my  belief  in  my  existence  was 
largely  due  to  the  Imagination.  Cogito,  ergo  sum,  "  I 
think,  therefore  I  am," — if  intended  as  a  serious  proof, 
and  if  there  is  any  real  meaning  in  the  "  ergo  " — appears 
to  me  to  be  the  most  babyish  of  arguments.  I  respect  the 
gigantic  intellect  of  the  arguer,  but  not  even  a  giant  can 
make  ropes  of  sand  ;  and  it  needs  but  a  little  grammar  to 
dissolve  this  reasoning  to  nothing.  tl  I  think  "  means  "  I 
am  one  thinking."  In  some  languages,  in  Hebrew  for 
example,  you  might  have  no  other  way  of  expressing  the 
proposition  than  in  this  form  :  "  I  am  one  thinking."  What 
sort  of  reasoning  then  is  this  !  "  I  am  one  thinking,  there- 
fore I  am."  "  This  i s  white  paper,  therefore  it  is!"  Surely 
a  ridiculous  offspring  to  issue  from  great  logical  travail ! 
And  besides,  what  infinite  assumptions  are  presupposed 
in  that  monosyllable  "  I  "  !  How  do  I  know  that  "  / 
think,"  and  that  it  is  not  the  great  world-spirit  who  thinks 
in  me,  as  well  as  rains  outside  me  ?  Why  ought  I  not  to 
say  "it  thinks,"  just  as  I  say  "it  rains"  ?     What  do  you 


Letter  23]     THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  255 

mean  by  "  I "  ?  Tell  us  what  "  I  "  is.  And  how  can  the 
desperate  logician  set  about  telling  us  what  "  I ;'  is,  with- 
out assuming  that  his  own  "  I  "  is,  which  is  equivalent  to 
assuming  "  I  am  "  ?  Surely  this  is  altogether  a  hopeless 
muddle,  and  we  ought  to  give  up  reasoning  about  "  I  " 
and  "  am  ; "  yes,  and  I  would  add  not  only  about  "  I  "  and 
"am,"  but  also  about  a  number  of  other  fundamental 
conceptions,  which  are  far  more  profitably  assumed  as 
axioms.  For  my  part,  whenever  I  use  the  words  "  mind," 
"matter,"  "substance,"  "  spirit,"  "  soul,"  "  intellect,"  and 
the  like,  and  make  any  serious  statement  about  them,  I 
hardly  ever  do  so  without  a  mental  reservation,  saying  to 
myself — "  but '  of  course  there  may  be  no  such  things 
precisely  as  these,  but  some  other  things  quite  different, 
producing  the  results  which  we  ascribe  to  these  ;  so  that 
all  these  statements  may  be  only  proportionately  true." 

I  do  not  object  to  the  use  of  the  materialistic  language 
where  it  is  recognized  as  metaphor  by  those  who  use  and 
those  who  hear  it ;  but  the  mischief  is  that  it  is  often  not 
so  recognized.  Once  make  yourself  the  slave  of  the 
popular  language  about  "  spirit,"  and  "  substance,"  and 
what  not— and  you  are  in  danger  of  being  manacled 
intellectually  as  well  as  theologically.  The  popular  be- 
lief is  that  a  man's  spirit  is  inside  him,  like  his  qualities  ; 
the  latter  like  peas  in  a  box,  the  former  like  gas  in  a 
bladder.  Drive  a  hole  through  a  man's  left  side  or 
the  middle  of  his  head,  and — out  goes  the  spirit ;  that 
is  the  common  materialistic  creed.  Now  I  have  a  strong 
desire  to  declare  that  this  creed  is  ridiculously  false. 
But  I  will  be  consistent  and  simply  say  that  I  know 
nothing  whatever  about  it.  My  spirit  may  possibly  be 
inside  me ;  but  it  may  possibly  be  outside  me  ;  say  at  a 
point  six  feet,  or  six  miles,  above  me  ;  or  away  in  Jupiter, 
or  Saturn,  or  down  at  the  earth' s  centre ;  or  it  may  be 
incapable  of  occupying  space.     What  does  it  matter  to 


256  THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION     {Letter  23 

you  or  to  me,  theologically  or  intellectually,  whether  that 
part  of  us  which  we  call  our  "  spirit "  has  its  local  habita- 
tion inside  us,  or  outside,  or  in  no  locality  at  all?  Is  it 
not  enough  to  recognize  that  we  have  powers  of  acting, 
loving,  trusting,  and  believing,  and  to  feel  certain  that  God 
intends  these  powers  to  be  developed  and  never  to  perish  ? 
Yet  I  remember  that  a  friend  of  mine  was  shocked,  and 
almost  appalled,  when  I  avowed  ignorance  as  to  the 
locality  of  my  spirit.  He  seemed  to  think  I  might  as 
well  have  no  spirit  at  all,  if  it  could  not  prove  its  respect- 
ability by  giving  its  name  and  address  ! 

For  my  part  I  am  now  quite  certain  of  Christ's  spiritual 
Resurrection,  and  in  that  conviction  I  am  far  happier 
and  far  more  trustful  than  when  I  at  first  mechanically 
accepted  upon  authority  and  evidence  the  belief  in  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ's  body,  and  subsequently  strove  to 
retain  that  belief,  against  the  testimony  of  my  intelligence 
and  my  conscience.  I  think  you  also  will  find,  as  years 
go  on,  when  it  becomes  your  lot  to  stand  by  the  grave  into 
which  friend  after  friend  is  lowered,  that  a  heartfelt  con- 
viction of  the  spiritual  Resurrection  of  Christ  affords  more 
comfort  to  you  at  such  moments  than  your  old  belief — 
based  largely  upon  historical  evidence,  and  brain-felt 
rather  than  heart-felt — in  His  physical  Resurrection. 
For  the  former  unites  us  with  Christ,  the  latter  separates 
us  from  Christ.  We  none  of  us  expect  that  the  material 
and  tangible  bodies  of  our  friends  will  rise  from  the  dead 
in  the  flesh  without  "  seeing  corruption  ;  "  but  we  do  trust 
that  they  shall  rise  as  "  spiritual  bodies  "  over  whom  death 
shall  have  no  power.  This  trust  is  confirmed  by  the  belief 
that  Christ  rose  as  we  trust  they  shall  hereafter  rise.  If, 
therefore,  Christ  rose  a  material  body  from  the  grave — 
that  stirs  no  hope  in  us.  But  if,  while  His  body  remained 
in  the  grave,  His  spirit  rose  triumphant  to  the  throne  of 
God,  then  we  see  a  hope  indeed  that  may  suit  our  case  and 


Letter  23]     THE  SPIRITUAL  RESURRECTION  257 

give  us  some  gleam  of  consolation.  The  bodies  of  the 
dead  may  lie  there  and  decay  ;  but  what  of  that  ?  Even 
so  was  it  with  the  Saviour :  but  the  spiritual  body  is  in- 
dependent of  the  flesh  and  shall  rise  superior  to  death. 

Do  not  imagine  that  the  spiritual  body  is  one  whit  less 
real  than  the  material  body  ;  only,  as  the  material  body 
belongs  to  the  time-world,  so  the  spiritual  body  belongs 
to  the  eternal  world.  Each  is  suited  to  its  own  environ- 
ment, but  each  of  them  is  a  real  body.  As  to  the  relation 
between  the  material  and  the  spiritual  body  we  know 
nothing,  and  we  need  know  nothing. 

When  will  men  learn  to  be  less  greedy  of  shams  and 
bubbles  of  pretended  material  knowledge,  and  more 
earnest  and  patient  in  their  sober  aspirations  after 
spiritual  truth?  When  will  they  realize  that  an  un- 
hesitating faith  in  a  few  elementary  principles  is  better 
than  a  tremulous  quasi-knowledge  of  a  whole  globe  of 
dogmas  ? 


258  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT? 


XXIV 

My  dear , 

You  take  me  to  task  for  the  abrupt  termination 
of  my  last  letter.  I  broke  off,  you  say,  just  when  you 
thought  I  was  on  the  point  of  explaining  what  I  meant 
by  a  spirit :  "  Surely  you  have  some  theory  of  your  own 
and  are  not  content  with  disbelieving  other  people's 
theories."  Well,  I  thought  I  had  said  before  that  I  am 
content  to  know  merely  this  about  a  spirit,  that  it  pos- 
sesses capabilities  for  loving  and  serving  God,  or  other 
nobler  capabilities  corresponding  to  these.  But  if  you 
press  me  to  set  up  some  theory  of  my  own  that  you  may 
have  the  pleasure  of  pulling  it  to  pieces,  I  will  confess  to 
you  that  my  nearest  conception  of  a  spirit  is  a  personified 
virtue.  This  cannot  very  well  be  quite  right ;  any  more 
than  a  carpenter  can  be  like  a  door,  or  like  anything  else 
that  he  has  constructed.  But  it  is  the  nearest  I  can  come 
to  any  conception  that  is  not  too  repulsively  material. 
And  sometimes,  when  I  try  to  conceive  of  the  causes  of 
terrestrial  thoughts,  and  emotions,  and  spiritual  move- 
ments, I  find  myself  recurring  to  the  antique  notion,  hinted 
at  in  one  or  two  passages  of  the  Bible,  and  I  believe 
encouraged  by  some  of  the  old  Rabbis,  that  there  are  two 
worlds  ;  one  visible,  terrestrial,  and  material,  the  other 
invisible,  celestial,  and  spiritual ;  and  that  whatsoever 
takes  place  down  here  takes  place  first  (or  simultaneously 
but  causatively)  up   there ;   here,  the   mere  outsides   of 


Letter  24}  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  259 

things  ;  there,  the  causes  and  springs  of  action  ;  the  bodies 
down  on  earth,  the  spirits  up  in  heaven. 

This  is  but  a  harmless  fancy.  Let  me  give  you  another. 
You  know — or  might  know  if  you  would  read  a  little  book 
recently  published  called  Flatland,  and  still  better,  if  you 
would  study  a  very  able  and  original  work  by  Mr.  C.  H. 
Hinton  ' — that  a  being  of  Four  Dimensions,  if  such  there 
were,  could  come  into  our  closed  rooms  without  opening 
door  or  window,  nay,  could  even  penetrate  into,  and 
inhabit,  our  bodies  ;  that  he  could  simultaneously  see 
the  insides  of  all  things  and  the  interior  of  the  whole 
earth  thrown  open  to  his  vision  :  he  would  also  have  the 
power  of  making  himself  visible  and  invisible  at  plea- 
sure ;  and  could  address  words  to  us  from  an  invisible 
position  outside  us,  or  inside  our  own  person.  Why  then 
might  not  spirits  be  beings  of  the  Fourth  Dimension? 
Well,  I  will  tell  you  why.  Although  we  cannot  hope 
ever  to  comprehend  what  a  spirit  is — just  as  we  can 
never  comprehend  what  God  is — yet  St.  Paul  teaches 
us  that  the  deep  things  of  the  spirit  are  in  some  de- 
gree made  known  to  us  by  our  own  spirits.  Now  when 
does  the  spirit  seem  most  active  in  us  ?  or  when  do  we 
seem  nearest  to  the  apprehension  of  "  the  deep  things  of 
God"?  Is  it  not  when  we  are  exercising  those  virtues 
which,  as  St.  Paul  says,  "  abide  " — I  mean  faith,  hope  and 
love  ?  Now  there  is  obviously  no  connection  between 
these  virtues  and  the  Fourth  Dimension.  Even  if  we  could 
conceive  of  space  of  Four  Dimensions — which  we  cannot 
do,  although  we  can  perhaps  describe  what  some  of  its 
phenomena  would  be  if  it  existed — we  should  not  be  a  whit 
the  better  morally  or  spiritually.  It  seems  to  me  rather  a 
moral  than  an  intellectual  process,  to  approximate  to  the 
conception  of  a  spirit  :  and  toward  this  no  knowledge  of 
Quadridimensional  space  can  guide  us. 

1  "A  Romance  of  the  Fourth  Dimension"  Swan  Sonnenscheln. 

S    2 


260  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  [Letter  24 

What,  for  example,  do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  describe  Him  as  the  Third  Person  in  the 
Trinity  ?  I  hope  you  will  not  suppose —  because  I  happen 
to  be  a  rationalist  as  regards  the  historical  interpretation 
of  certain  parts  of  the  Bible,  or  because  I  have  not  dis- 
guised my  dislike  of  the  formal  and  quasi-arithmetical 
propositions  in  which  the  Athanasian  creed  sets  forth  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity — that  I  reject  the  teaching  of  the 
New  Testament  on  the  nature  and  functions  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Literary  criticism  may  oblige  us  to  regard  the  long 
discourses  on  the  functions  of  the  Paraclete  or  Advocate 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel  as  being  in  the  style  of  the  author 
and  not  the  language  of  Christ  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  sup- 
pose that  the  sublime  thoughts  in  those  passages  are  the 
mere  inventions  of  a  disciple  of  Jesus  ;  and  the  character- 
istic sayings  of  Christ  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  bear 
cogent  though  terse  witness  to  His  acknowledgment  of  a 
Holy  Spirit  who  should  "speak"  in  His  disciples,  and 
"teach"  His  disciples  what  to  say,  when  they  were 
summoned  before  the  bar  of  princes  :  "  it  is  not  ye  that 
speak,  but  the  Holy  Spirit,"  Mark  xiii.  1 1  ;  "it  is  not  ye 
that  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your  Father  which  speaketh 
in  you,"  Matth.  x.  20  ;  "  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  teach  you 
in  that  very  hour  what  ye  ought  to  say,"  Luke  xii.  12.  I 
need  not  remind  you  how  large  a  space  "  the  Spirit  " 
claims  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  and  especially  of  the  use 
which  the  Apostle  makes  of  the  triple  combination  of  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  Even,  therefore, 
if  I  could  give  no  explanation  of  the  whole  of  it,  nor  so 
much  as  put  into  words  the  faint  glimpse  I  may  have 
gained  into  the  meaning  of  a  part  of  this  doctrine,  I  should 
be  inclined  to  accept  the  existence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on 
the  authority  of  Christ  or  St.  Paul,  as  being  a  doctrine  that 
does  not  enter  into  the  domain  of  evidence,  a  conception  of 
the  divine  nature  from  which  I  might  hope  to  learn  much, 


Letter  2^\  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  261 

if  I  would  reverently  keep  it  before  me  and  try  to  apprehend 
it.  But  I  seem  to  have  a  glimpse  of  it.  That  influence 
or  "  idea "  of  the  dead  which,  as  Shakespeare  says, 
"  creeps  into  our  study  of  imagination,"  and  which  repro- 
duces all  the  best  and  essential  characteristics  of  the 
departed — when  this  has  once  taken  possession  of  us,  do 
we  not  naturally  say  that  we  now  realize  "  the  spirit "  of 
the  dead,  feeling  that  it  guides  us  for  the  first  time  to  the 
appreciation  of  his  words  and  deeds  ?  Now  as  God,  the 
initial  Thought,  needed  to  be  revealed  to  us  by  means  of 
the  Word  of  God,  so  the  Word  needed  to  be  revealed 
to  us  by  means  of  the  Influence  of  the  Word.  Or,  to 
put  it  more  personally,  as  the  Father  needed  to  be  re- 
vealed by  the  Son,  so  the  Son  needed  to  be  revealed  by 
the  Spirit.  Those  who  knew  Christ  merely  in  the  flesh 
knew  but  little  of  Him,  and  had  little  understanding  of  His 
words.  It  was  the  Spirit  of  Christ  that  guided,  and  still 
guides,  His  disciples  into  the  fuller  knowledge  of  the 
meaning  of  His  past  life  on  earth  and  His  present 
purposes  in  heaven. 

I  own,  however,  that  I  have  sometimes  felt  at  a  loss 
when  I  have  asked  myself,  "  How  is  this  Spirit  a  Person  ? 
And  do  I  love  Him  or  It  ?  And  if  Jesus  and  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus  are  two  Persons,  then  must  I  also  infer  two  per- 
sonalities for  myself,  one  for  my  mortal  terrestrial 
humanity,  another  for  my  immortal  celestial  spirit?" 
These  questions  are  extremely  difficult  for  me  to  answer 
with  confidence  :  yet  I  feel  instinctively  that  they  have  a 
profound  and  satisfying  answer  to  which  I  have  not  yet 
attained  ;  but  I  suggest  some  answer  of  this  kind,  "  When 
we  endeavour  to  form  a  conception  of  God  we  ought  to 
put  aside  the  limitations  of  human  individuality.  Now  we 
cannot  do  this  while  we  conceive  of  God  simply  as  the 
Father,  and  still  less  while  we  conceive  of  Him  simply  as 
the  Son  :  but  we  can  do  it  when  we  conceive  of  Him  as 


262  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  [Letter  24 

being  an  all-pervasive  Power,  the  source  of  order  and 
harmony  and  light,  sometimes  as  a  Breath  breathing  life 
into  all  things  good  and  beautiful,  sometimes  as  a  Bond, 
or  Law,  linking  or  attracting  together  all  things  material 
and  spiritual  so  as  to  make  up  the  Kosmos  or  Order  of 
the  Universe.  The  traditions  of  the  Church  have  taught 
us  that  there  has  been  such  a  Power,  subsisting  from  the 
first  with  the  Father  and  the  Eternal  Son,  in  whom  the 
Father  and  the  Son  were,  and  are,  united  ;  and  by  whom 
the  whole  human  race  is  bound  together  in  brotherhood 
to  one  another  and  in  sonship  to  the  Eternal  Father. 
What  is  this  Being  but  the  Personification  of  that  Power 
which,  in  the  material  world,  we  call  Attraction  and  in  the 
immaterial,  Love?  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  this  Being 
which  breathes  good  thoughts  into  every  human  breast 
should  love  those  whom  It  inspires  ?  And  we — can  we 
love  our  country,  and  love  Goodness,  Purity,  Honour, 
Faith,  Hope,  and  yet  must  we  find  it  impossible  to  love 
this  personified  Love,  this  Holy  Spirit?  But  if  we  love 
the  Spirit  of  God,  and  the  Spirit  loves  us,  then  we  can 
understand  how  it  may  be  called  a  Person." 

I  foresee  the  answer  that  might  be  given  to  these — 
I  will  not  call  them  reasonings,  say  meditations.  "All 
this  is  the  mere  play  of  fancy :  you  personify  England, 
Virtue,  Goodness,  Hope,  Faith,  and  the  like  ;  and  such 
personifications  are  tolerable  in  poetry  ;  but  you  do  not 
surely  maintain  that  such  personifications  have  any  real 
existence  :  in  the  same  way,  you  may  find  a  certain  con- 
ception of  the  Supreme  Being  useful  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  devotion,  but  you  have  no  right  hence  to  infer 
that  this  conception  represents  an  objective  reality,  much 
less  God  Himself."  My  reply  is  that  in  the  region  of  theo- 
logical contemplation  where  demonstration,  and  proof 
of  the  ordinary  kind,  are  both  impossible,  I  conceive  I 
"  have  a  right "  to  do  this  on  the  authority  of  Christ  and 


Letter  24]  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  263 

St.  Paul  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  the  general  tradition 
of  the  Church.  I  would  sooner  believe  that  myself  and 
my  spirit  have  a  dual  personality  ;  I  would  sooner 
recognize  the  presence  of  the  Angels  of  England  and 
France  and  the  other  great  nations  of  the  world  about  the 
heavenly  throne,  like  the  Angels  of  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia  or  the  Angel  of  the  Chosen  People  ;  I  would  sooner 
acknowledge  the  actual  personality  of  Hope,  Faith,  and  I 
know  not  what  other  celestial  ministers  between  God  and 
man  ;  I  would  sooner,  in  a  word,  believe  that  personality 
depends  upon  some  subtle  combination  such  as  only 
poets  have  dimly  guessed  at,  than  I  would  give  up  the 
belief  that  there  is  beside  the  Eternal  Father,  and  the 
Eternal  Son,  an  Eternal  Spirit,  to  the  description  of  whom 
we  can  best  approximate  by  calling  Him  personified 
Love. 

Looking  at  the  Spirit  of  God  in  this  way  I  sometimes 
seem  to  discern  a  closer  connection  than  is  generally 
recognized  between  the  Resurrection  and  the  power  of 
loving.  You  will  remember  that  St.  Paul  constantly 
connects  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  with  the  "Spirit;" 
Christ  was  "  raised  from  the  dead  in,  or  by,  the  Spirit ; 
and  St.  Peter  says  that  Christ  was  "  put  to  death  in  the 
flesh,  but  quickened  in  the  Spirit?  Now  this  Spirit  is 
the  Power  of  Love.  Do  we  ask  for  an  explanation  of  this 
connection  ?  It  is  surely  obvious  that  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ  would  not  have  directly  availed  men  (so  far  as  we 
can  see)  unless  it  had  been  manifested  to  them.  But 
how  was  it  manifested  ?  We  think  it  was  by  love  :  on 
the  one  hand  by  the  unsatisfied  and  longing  love  of  the 
sorrowing  disciples,  creating  a  blank  in  the  heart  which 
could  only  be  filled  by  the  image  of  the  risen  Saviour  ;  on 
the  other  hand  by  the  unsatisfied  and  longing  love  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  dying  with  a  purpose  as  yet  unfulfilled. 
Thus — so  far  as  concerns  the  influence  of  the  Resurrection 


264  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT  ?  [Letter  24 

of  Jesus  upon  humanity — it  was  the  Spirit  of  Love  that 
raised  Jesus  from  the  abyss  of  inert  oblivion  and  ex- 
alted Him  to  the  right  hand  of  God  in  the  souls  of  men. 
I  dare  not  say  that,  if  Jesus  had  failed  to  root  Himself  in 
the  hearts  of  men  He  could  never  have  been  raised  from 
the  dead  ;  just  as  I  dare  not  say  that,  if  St.  Peter  had  not 
been  inspired  to  say  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  the  Church 
could  never  have  been  founded  on  the  rock  of  heaven- 
imparted  faith.  Let  us  avoid  this  way  of  looking  at 
things,  as  being  repulsive  and  preposterous,  putting 
things  terrestrial  before  things  celestial.  Let  us  rathei 
say  that,  because  the  rock  of  faith  was  being  set  up  by  the 
hand  of  God  in  heaven,  therefore  at  that  same  instant  the 
Apostle  received  the  strength  to  utter  his  confession  of 
faith  ;  and  because  Christ's  Spirit  had  soared  up  after 
death  to  the  heaven  of  heavens  and  thence  was  bending 
down  lovingly  to  look  upon  His  despairing  followers, 
therefore  they  received  power  to  see  Him  again,  living 
for  them  on  earth. 

Yet  as  regards  ordinary  men,  I  cannot  help  occasionally 
reviving  that  same  preposterous  method  which  I  would 
discard  in  the  case  of  Christ.  And  starting  from  terrestrial 
phenomena  first,  I  sometimes  ask  myself,  Is  it  possible 
that  the  resurrection  of  each  human  soul  may  depend  upon 
the  degree  to  which  it  has  rooted  itself  in  the  affection  of 
others  ?  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  teaches  that  the 
condition  of  the  dead  may  be  affected  by  the  prayers  of 
survivors ;  and  many  abuses  have  resulted  from  a  perverted 
and  mechanical  misinterpretation  of  that  doctrine  ;  but 
how  if  the  spirit  of  a  dead  man  actually  owes  its  spiritual 
resurrection,  not  indeed  to  formally  uttered  petitions,  but 
to  the  silent  prayers,  the  loving  wishes,  the  irrepressible 
desires,  of  fellow-spirits  on  earth  and  in  heaven  ?  How  if 
a  man  lives  in  heaven  and  in  the  second  life  so  far  as  his 
spirit  has  imprinted  itself  on  the  loving  memories  of  others 


Letter  2/&  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  265 

above  and  below  ?  "  Has  the  dead  man  kindled  in  the 
heart  of  one  single  human  being  a  spark  of  genuine 
unselfish  affection  ?  To  that  extent,  then,  he  receives  a 
proportional  germ  of  expansive  and  eternal  life— might  it 
not  be  so  ?  And  if  it  were  so,  then  we  could  better  un- 
derstand how  both  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  we  mortal 
men,  die  in  the  flesh  but  are  raised  to  a  life  eternal  after 
death  "in  the  Spirit"  and  "by  the  Spirit"— that  great 
pervasive  spiritual  Power  of  Love  which  links  all  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  together. 

I  trust  I  have  theorized  enough  to  please  you.  I  have 
done  so  because  on  the  whole  I  think  it  best  that  you 
should  see  all  the  weakness,  as  well  as  all  the  strength, 
of  my  position— the  credulous  and  fanciful  side  of  it,  as 
well  as  its  breadth,  its  naturalness,  its  reasonableness, 
its  spiritual  comfort,  its  dependence  on  moral  effort,  its 
recognition  of  Law,  its  consistency  with  facts,  and  its 
absolute  freedom  from  intellectual  difficulties.  Regarded 
in  the  ordinary  way,  as  being  the  revivification  of  the 
material  body,  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  becomes  an 
isolated  portent  in  history  ;  regarded  naturally,  it  becomes 
the  triumph  of  the  Spirit  over  the  fear  of  death,  the 
central  event  of  our  earthly  history.  Central  I  say,  but 
not  isolated  ;  because  there  are  seen  converging  towards 
it,  as  it  were  predictively,  all  the  phenomena  of  the  evolu- 
tion and  training  of  the  Imagination  ;  all  instances  of  true 
poetic  and  prophetic  vision  ;  the  stars  of  heaven  and  all 
the  creative  provisions  of  night  and  darkness  and  sleep  and 
dreams,  nay  even  death  itself.  And  what  higher  tribute 
(short  of  actual  worship)  can  be  paid  to  the  personality  of 
Christ  than  to  say  that  "  the  phenomena  of  His  resurrec- 
tion are  natural."  I  think  if  I  were  depressed  and  shaken 
in  faith — as  one  is  liable  to  be  at  times,  not  by  intellectual 
but  by  moral  considerations,  when  one  feels  that  evil  is 
stronger  than  it  should  be,  both  in  oneself  and  outside 


266  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT?  [Letter  24 

oneself — it  would  be  a  great  help  to  go  and  hear  some 
agnostic  saying  with  vehement  conviction,  "  The  resur- 
rection of  Christ  was  natural,  purely  natural."  I  should 
bid  him  say  it  again,  and  again  ;  and  I  would  go  home 
and  say  it  over  and  over  again  to  myself  by  way  of 
comfort,  to  strengthen  my  faith  :  "  The  manifestations 
of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  were  purely  natural.  So  they 
were.  Things  could  not  be  otherwise.  Being  what  He 
was,  Christ  could  not  but  thus  be  manifested  to  His  fol- 
lowers after  death.  It  was  the  natural  effect  of  Christ's 
personality  upon  the  disciples  ;  and  through  the  disciples 
upon  St.  Paul.  Then  what  a  Person  have  we  here  !  A 
Person  consciously  superior  to  death,  and,  after  His 
death,  fulfilling  a  promise  which  He  made  to  His  disciples 
that  He  would  still  be  present  with  them  !  What  wonder 
if  He  is  even  now  present  with  us,  influencing  us  with 
something  of  the  power  with  which  He  moved  the  last  of 
the  Apostles  !  What  wonder  if  He  is  destined  yet  for 
future  ages  to  be  a  present  Power  among  men  until  the 
establishment  of  that  Kingdom  which  He  proclaimed 
upon  earth,  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  brotherhood 
of  man  !  " 


THE  INCARNATION  267 


XXV 

My  dear , 

I  had  not  forgotten  that,  in  order  to  complete  the 
brief  discussion  of  the  miraculous  element  in  the  New- 
Testament,  it  is  necessary  to  give  some  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  the  accounts  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  Your  last 
letter  reminds  me  of  this  necessity,  and  you  put  before  me 
two  alternatives.  "  If,"  you  say,  "  Christ  was  born  of  a 
Virgin,  then  a  miracle  is  conceded  so  stupendous  that  it 
is  absurd  to  object  to  the  other  miracles  :  but  if  Christ 
was  not  born  of  a  Virgin,  then,  unless  the  honesty  of  the 
Gospel  narratives  is  to  be  impeached,  some  account  is 
needed  of  the  way  in  which  the  miraculous  legend  found 
its  way  into  the  Gospels  ;  "  and  you  add  that  you  would 
like  to  know  what  meaning,  if  any,  I  attach  to  the  state- 
ment in  the  Creed,  that  Jesus  was  "  born  of  a  Virgin." 

As  you  probably  anticipate,  I  accept  the  latter  of  your 
alternatives,  and  I  will  therefore  endeavour  briefly  to  shew 
how  the  story  of  the  Miraculous  Conception  "  found  its 
way  into  the  Gospels."  But  first  I  must  protest  against 
your  expression  as  inexact.  The  story  of  the  Miraculous 
Conception,  so  far  from  having  "  found  its  way  into  the 
Gospels*1  found  its  way  into  only  two  out  of  the  four, 
namely,  St.  Matthew's  and  St.  Luke's.  And  this  fact, 
strong  as  it  is,  does  not  represent  the  strength  of  the 
negative  argument  from  omission.  Of  the  nine  authors, 
or  thereabouts,  of  the  different  books  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, only  two  contain  any  account,  reference,  or  allusion 


268  THE  INCARNATION  [Letter  25 

to  the  Miraculous  Conception.  No  mention  is  made  of  it 
in  any  of  the  numerous  Epistles  of  St.  Paul ;  nor  in  any  of 
his  speeches,  nor  in  those  of  St.  Peter,  recorded  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  nor  in  any  part  of  that  book  ;  nor  in  the 
Epistles  of  St.  John,  St.'James,  St.  Peter,  St.  Jude  ;  nor  in 
the  Apocalypse  ;  nor  in  the  Gospels  of  St.  Mark  and  St. 
John  !  Even  the  two  Gospels  that  mention  it  contain  no 
evidence  that  it  was  known  to  any  of  the  disciples  during 
the  life-time  of  Jesus,  and  one  of  these  (Luke  iii.  23)  traces 
the  genealogy  of  Jesus  from  Joseph  and  expressly  declares 
that  He  "  was  supposed "  to  be  "the  Son  of  Joseph."1 
This  negative  evidence  becomes  all  the  more  weighty  if 
you  consider  how  very  natural  it  was,  and  I  may  almost 
say  inevitable,  that  the  story  of  a  Miraculous  Conception 
should  speedily  find  its  way  into  the  traditions  of  the  early 
Church.  The  causes  that  worked  toward  this  result 
were,  first,  Old  Testament  prophecy  ;  secondly,  traditions 
and  expressions  current  among  a  certain  section  of  the 
Jews  ;  thirdly,  the  preconceptions  of  pagan  converts. 

Recall  to  mind  what  was  said  in  a  previous  letter  con- 
cerning the  importance  attached  by  the  earliest  Christians 
to  the  argument  from  prophecy.  Now  there  is  a 
prophecy  in  Isaiah  which,  if  separated  from  its  co?itext, 
might  seem  to  point  to  nothing  but  the  Miraculous 
Conception  of  the  Messiah  :  "  The  Lord  himself  shall 
give  you  a  sign  :  behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear 
a  son  and  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel.''  But  a  careful 
study  of  the  context  puts  the  matter  in  a  quite  different 
light.     Isaiah  (vii.  10 — viii.  4)  is  promising  to  King  Ahaz 

1  Yet  I  have  heard  it  said,  "  So  far  as  evidence  goes,  you  have  no  more 
reason  for  rejecting  the  Miraculous  Conception  than  for  rejecting  the  story 
that  Jesus  washed  the  feet  of  the  Apostles  :  for  two  witnesses  attest  the 
former;  but  only  one,  the  latter.  Your  objection  is  a  priori."  Such  argu- 
ments seem  to  me  to  fail  to  recognize  the  first  principles  of  evidence.  The 
omission  of  a  stupendous  marvel,  an  integral  part  (and  is  not  the  parentage 
an  integral  part  ?)  of  a  biography,  by  biographers  who  have  no  motive  for 
omitting  it  and  every  motive  for  inserting  it,  is  a  strong  proof  that  they  did 
not  know  it.     For  a  similar  instance,  see  above,  p.  167. 


Letter  25]  THE  INCARNATION  269 

deliverance  from  the  kings  of  Syria  and  Samaria.  As  the 
king  will  not  ask  for  a  sign,  the  prophet  promises  that  the 
Lord  will  give  him  one  ;  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bring 
forth  a  child  and  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel  ("  God  with 
us  ")  :  he  shall  "  eat  butter  and  honey  "  when  he  arrives  at 
the  age  of  distinction  between  good  and  evil  ;  for  before 
he  arrives  at  that  age,  the  land  abhorred  by  Ahaz  shall  be 
"  forsaken  by  both  her  kings."  The  meaning  appears  to 
be  that,  within  the  time  necessary  for  the  conception  and 
birth  of  a  child,  that  is  to  say,  in  less  than  a  year,  the 
prospects  of  deliverance  for  Judah  from  her  present 
enemies  (Syria  and  Samaria)  shall  so  brighten  that  a  child 
shall  be  born*  and  called  by  a  name  implying  the  favour  of 
God  ;  afterwards,  before  that  child  shall  grow  up  to  child- 
hood, the  two  aggressive  countries  of  Syria  and  Samaria 
shall  be  themselves  desolated,  as  well  as  Judah,  by  the 
"  razor"  of  Assyria  which  shall  shave  the  country  clean 
from  all  cultivated  crops.  Amid  the  general  desolation, 
the  fruit  trees  will  be  cut  down,  the  corn  will  not  be  sown  ; 
bread  there  will  be  none  ;  there  will  be  nothing  to  eat  but 
"  butter  and  honey  ;  "  it  is  not  the  new-born  child  alone 
who  shall  eat  "  butter  and  honey  ; "  "  butter  and  honey 
shall  every  one  eat  that  is  left  in  the  /and"  (vii.  22). 

In  all  this,  even  though  we  may  suppose  that  there  may 
have  been  some  Messianic  reference,  there  is  no  prediction 
at  all  of  a  conception  from  a  virgin  or  of  a  miracle  of  any 
kind.  Indeed,  the  prophecy  appears  to  find  some  sort  of 
fulfilment  in  what  happens  immediately  afterwards  (Isaiah 
viii.  1-4),  when  the  prophet  contracts  a  marriage,  and  calls 
the  son  who  springs  from  it  by  a  name  implying  the 
vengeance  imminent  on  Samaria  and  Assyria :  "  Call 
his  name  Maher-shalal-hash-baz  (i.e.  booty,  quick,  spoil, 
speedy) :  for  before  the  boy  shall  have  knowledge  to  cry 
my  father  !  my  mother  !  the  riches  of  Damascus  and  the 
spoil  of  Samaria  shall  be  taken  away  before  the  king  of 


270  THE  INCARNATION  [Letter  25 

Assyria."  No  doubt  it  may  be  said  that  this  son  was  not 
called  "  Immanuel,"  so  that  the  prophecy  was  not  fulfilled 
in  him.  But  the  same  argument  might  be  urged  against 
the  application  to  our  Lord  ;  for  He  also  was  not  called 
"  Immanuel,"  but  received  the  old  national  name  of 
"Joshua,"  "Jeshua,"  or  "Jesus."  Reviewing  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  prophecy,  I  think  we  may  say, 
without  exaggeration,  first,  that  there  are  no  grounds  for 
seeing  in  it  any  reference  to  a  Miraculous  Conception  ; 
secondly,  that,  when  isolated,  it  might  easily  be  mis- 
interpreted so  as  to  convey  such  a  reference.1 

Even  if  no  such  prophecy  had  existed,  the  language  and 
preconceptions  of  the  earliest  Christians  and  their  converts 
would  almost  necessarily  have  introduced  a  belief  in  the 
Miraculous  Conception.  The  language  of  Philo — who 
represents  not  a  mere  individual  eccentricity  but  the 
current  phraseology  of  the  Alexandrine  school  of  thought, 
and  whose  influence  may  be  traced  in  almost  every  page 

1  You  remember  that  the  two  accounts  of  the  Miraculous  Conception  differ 
in  respect  of  the  ''annunciation"  ;  which  St.  Matthew  describes  as  being 
made  to  Joseph,  St.  Luke  as  being  made  to  Mary.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
how  these  two  variations  correspond  to  two  variations  in  the  ancient  prophecy. 

In  the  LXX  the  name  is  to  be  given  to  the  child,  not  by  the  mother,  but 
by  the  future  husband:  "The  virgin  shall  be  with  child  and  bring  forth  a 
son,  and  thou  shalt  call  his  name  Immanuel".  In  the  Hebrew,  the  "virgin," 
or  "  maiden,"  is  herself  to  name  the  child :  "A  virgin  shall  .  .  .  bring  forth 
and  shall  call,  &c."  Adopting  the  former  version,  a  narrator  would  infer 
that  the  announcement  of  the  birth  was  to  be  made  to  Joseph,  as  the  first 
Gospel  does  :  "  She  shall  bring  forth  a  child  and  thou  (Joseph)  shalt  call 
his  name  Jesus."  Adopting  the  latter  version,  and  changing  the  third  into 
the  second  person  for  the  purpose  of  an  "  annunciation,"  the  narrator  would 
infer  that  since  the  name  was  to  be  given  by  the  7nother,  the  announcement 
was  made  to  the  mother,  as  the  third  Gospel  does :  "  Thou  shalt  be  with 
child,  and  shalt  bring  forth  a  son,  and  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus." 

Note  also  that  afterwards,  when  St.  Matthew  actually  quotes  the  whole 
prophecy  with  the  name  "Immanuel"  (i.  23).  he  alters  the  verb  into  the 
third  person  plural :  "That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the 
Lord  by  the  prophet,  saying,  Behold  the  virgin  shall  be  with  child,  and 
shall  bring  forth  a  child,  and  they  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel."  The 
reason  is  obvious.  It  would  not  be  true  to  say  that  Mary  called  her  son 
"Immanuel  ;"  it  would  only  be  possible  to  suggest  that  men  in  general 
("  they"),  looking  on  the  Child  as  the  token  of  (iod's  presence  among  them, 
might  bestow  on  him  some  such  title  (not  name)  as  "  God  with  us."  Con  - 
sequently  St.  Matthew  here  alters  "  thou  "  into  "  they." 


Letter  25]  THE  INCARNATION  271 

of  the  Fourth  Gospel— consistently  affirms  that,  whenever 

a  child  is  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament  as  having  been 

born  to  be  a  deliverer  in  fulfilment  of  a  divine  promise,  that 

child  is  "  begotten  of  God."     The  words  of  Sarah,  he  says, 

indicate  that,  in  reality,  "The  Lord  begot  Isaac."      God 

is  also  spoken  of  as  "  the  husband  of  Leah."     Zipporah 

is  described  as  being  "  pregnant  by  no  mortal."      Samuel, 

in   words   that   contain  an  implied   belief  that  only  his 

maternal  parentage  was  mortal,  is  declared  to  be  "  perhaps 

a  man,"  and  "  born  of  a  human  mother."     I  have  already 

quoted  one  passage  about  Isaac  ;  but  another  asserts  that 

he  is  to  be  considered  "not  the  result  of  generation  but 

the   work  of  tjie  imbegotten.v      Sometimes  the  language 

of  Philo  is  so  worded  as   to   convey  even  to  a  careful 

reader   the   impression   that   he   believed   in    a   literally 

Miraculous  Conception,  as  for  example  when  he  says  that 

"  Moses  introduces  Sarah  as  being  preg?iant  when  alone, 

and  as  being  visited  by  God?      Elsewhere,  he  removes 

the  possibility  of  misunderstanding  by  saying  that  "  the 

Scripture  is  cautious,  and  describes  God  as  the  husband, 

not  of  a  virgin,  but  of  virginity."      None  the  less,  you  can 

easily  see  how  expressions  of  this  kind,  current  among 

Jewish  philosophers  a  generation  before  the  time  of  St. 

Paul,  might  be  very  easily  interpreted  literally  by  ordinary 

people   unskilled   in   these   metaphorical   subtleties,  and 

especially  by  Gentile  converts  asking  for  a  plain  answer 

to  a   plain   question,  "  What  was  the   parentage  of  this 

man  whom  you  call  the  Son  of  God  ? " 

In  truth  the  preconceptions  of  the  Gentile  converts 
must  have  played  no  small  part  in  preparing  the  way  for 
the  doctrine  of  the  literal  Miraculous  Conception.  The 
Greeks  and  Romans  who  worshipped  or  honoured 
^Esculapius  son  of  Apollo,  Romulus  son  of  Mars, 
Hercules  son  of  Jupiter,  and  a  score  of  other  demi-gods, 
would  be  quite  familiar  with  the  notion  of  a  god  or  hero 


272  THE  INCARNATION  [Letter  25 

born  of  a  human  mother  and  of  a  divine  father  ;  they 
would  not  only  be  prepared  for  it  in  the  case  of  Jesus, 
whom  they  were  called  on  to  adore  as  the  Son  of  God, 
they  would  even  demand  and  assume  it.  They  would 
argue  much  as  Tertullian  argued :  "  If  he  was  the  son 
of  a  man,  he  was  not  the  son  of  God ;  and  if  he 
was  the  son  of  God,  he  was  not  the  son  of  a  man." 
This  argument  ought  to  have  been  met  by  a  flat 
denial,  thus  :  "  The  mere  physical  and  carnal  union  by' 
which,  according  to  your  legends,  the  gods,  assuming  the 
forms  of  men,  generated  ^Esculapius,  Romulus,  and 
Hercules,  is  not  to  be  thought  of  here.  When  we  speak 
of  Jesus  being  the  Son  of  God,  we  do  not  mean  that  His 
body  was  formed  by  God  descending  from  heaven  and 
assuming  human  shape  or  functions,  but  that  His  Spirit 
was  spiritually  begotten  of  God.  It  is  therefore  quite 
possible  that  Jesus  may  have  been  the  Son  of  God 
according  to  the  Spirit  and  yet  the  son  of  man  according 
to  the  flesh."  But  instead  of  that,  the  whole  truth,  there 
came  back  this  half-true  answer.  "  The  parentage  was 
divine,  but  not  of  the  materialistic  nature  you  suppose  : 
God  did  not  assume  human  shape  :  the  generation  was 
spiritual."  By  these  words  there  may  have  been  meant 
at  first,  simply  what  Philo  meant,  that  while  the  spiritual 
parentage  was  divine,  the  material  parentage  was  human  : 
but  such  an  answer  would  leave  many  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  body  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  Jesus  resulted 
from  a  spiritual  generation  in  which  no  human  father 
participated.  The  Gentiles  would  naturally  interpret  the 
Philonian  doctrine  literally  and  say  of  Mary,  as  Philo 
had  said  of  Sarah,  that  she  was  "  pregnant  when  alone, 
and  visited  by  God." 

From  a  very  different  point  of  view,  the  ritual  and 
hymnals  of  some  of  the  Jews  might  facilitate  the  growth 
of  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  born  of  a  virgin.     For  they 


Utter  25]  THE  INCARNATION  273 

might  naturally  speak  of  their  Messiah  as  being  a  child 
of  the  virgin  daughter  of  Sion,  whose  only  husband  was 
Jehovah.  And  hence  in  the  Apocalypse,  a  book  imbued 
with  Jewish  feeling,  we  find  Jesus  described  (xii.  1 — 6)  as 
the  child  of  a  woman  who  evidently  represents  Israel : 
"A  woman  arrayed  with  the  sun,  and  the  moon  under 
her  feet,  and  upon  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars  ;  and 
she  was  with  child.  .  .  .  And  she  was  delivered  of  a  son, 
a  man  child,  who  is  to  rule  all  the  7iatio?is  with  a  rod  of 
iron.'"  This  personification  of  the  daughter  of  Israel  or 
of  Jerusalem  as  representing  the  nation,  the  bride  of 
Jehovah,  is  very  common  in  the  prophets.  You  may  find 
similar  personifications  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
Apocalypse  describes  the  Church  as  the  Holy  City,  the 
New  Jerusalem,  descending  from  Heaven  "  as  a  bride 
adorned  for  her  husband."  St.  Paul  speaks  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,  which  is  above  {i.e.  the  spiritual  Jerusalem, 
free  from  the  law),  as  being  "  the  mother  of  us  all."  Some- 
times the  personification  of  the  Church  is  liable  to  be 
misinterpreted  literally,  as  in  St.  Peter's  and  St.  John's 
Epistles,  where  "  the  elect  lady  "  "  thine  elect  sister  "  and 
uthe  (lady)  in  Babylon"  have  been  supposed  by  some 
to  refer  to  individuals,  but  are  believed  by  Bishop 
Lightfoot  to  represent  the  Churches  of  the  places  from 
which,  and  to  which,  the  epistles  were  written.  The 
whole  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  presuppose  the  metaphor 
of  a  Virgin  Church,  and  toward  the  end  of  the  second 
century  (177  A.D.)  we  find  a  very  curious  passage  (in 
an  epistle  from  the  Church  of  Lyons)  in  which  the 
repentance  and  martyrdom  of  some  previous  apostates 
are  described  as  a  restoration  to  "the  Virgin  Mother"  of 
her  children,  "raised  from  the  dead."  You  see  then 
how  this  personification  runs  through  all  Jewish  and  all 
early  Christian  literature,  so  that  the  Church,  old  or  new, 
might  be  described  as  a  woman ;   and  I  ought  perhaps 

T 


274  THE  INCARNATION  [Letter  25 

not  to  have  omitted  the  strange  dream  in  the  second 
book  of  Esdras  (x.  44-46)  where  Israel  is  a  woman  and 
the  Temple  is  the  son  :  "  This  woman  whom  thou  sawest 
is  Sion  .  .  .  she  hath  been  thirty  years  barren,  but 
after  thirty  years  Solomon  builded  the  city  and  offered 
offerings,  and  then  bare  the  barren  a  son."  Does  not 
this  continuous  stream  of  thought  shew  how  natural  it 
would  be  for  the  earliest  Jewish  Christians  to  adore 
Christ  in  their  hymns  as  the  son  of  the  daughter  of  Zion, 
the  son  of  the  Virgin  Mother  ?  Add  to  this  the  prejudice 
among  the  Gentile  converts  against  a  human  paternity  for 
the  Son  of  God,  the  influence  of  the  Alexandrine  Jewish 
philosophy  and  the  still  more  powerful  influence  of  Isaiah's 
prophecy  about  "  the  virgin,"  and  I  think  you  will  see  that 
the  causes  at  work  to  produce  the  belief  in  the  Miraculous 
Conception  were  so  strong  that  I  may  almost  say  a 
miracle  would  have  been  needed  to  prevent  it. 

But  it  has  been  urged  that  St.  Luke  was  a  historian  and 
a  physician  ;  that  he  had  great  power  of  careful  descrip- 
tion— as  may  be  seen  from  his  exact  account  of  St.  Paul's 
shipwreck  ; — that  he  describes  the  circumstances  of  the 
miraculous  birth  in  a  plain  and  simple  manner  :  and  that 
he  assures  us  that  he  had  taken  every  pains  to  make  him- 
self acquainted  with  the  truth  of  the  things  which  he 
records.1  All  this  may  be  :  but  because  a  man  can  describe 
exactly  a  comparatively  recent  shipwreck,  which  he  may 
have  himself  witnessed,  or  which  at  all  events  may  have 
been  witnessed  by  some  who  told  him  the  story,  it  does 
not  follow  that  he  has  exact  information  about  a  miracu- 
lous birth  which  occurred  (if  at  all)  upwards  of  sixty 
years — more  probably  upwards  of  seventy — before  he 
wrote.  The  mother  of  Jesus  had,  in  all  probability,  passed 
away  when  St.  Luke  was  writing.  Such  obscurities  and 
variations  by  this  time  attended  the  stories  concerning 

1  Contemporary  Reviexv,  Feb.  1886,  p.  193. 


Letter  2$\  THE  INCARNATION  275 

the  infancy  of  Jesus,  that  we  find  even  the  compiler  of 
St.  Matthew's  Gospel  apparently  ignorant  that  the  home 
of  the  parents  of  Jesus  was  (if  St.  Luke  is  correct  on  this 
point)  not  Bethlehem,  but  Nazareth.     It  is  hardly  possible 
to  deny  his  ignorance  when  we  find  in  the  First  Gospel 
these  words  :  "  Now  when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem 
of  Judaea.  .  .  .  And   he   arose  and  took  the  young  child 
and  his  mother  and  came  into  the  land  of  Israel.     But 
when  he  heard  that  Archelaus  was  reigning  over  Judcza, 
he  was  afraid  to  go  thither;  and  being  warned  [of  God] 
in  a  dream,  he  withdrew  into  the  parts  of  Galilee  and 
came  and  dwelt  in  a  city  called  Nazareth?     Obviously 
the  writer  is  ignorant  that  "a  city  called  Nazareth"  was 
the  original  home  of  the  parents  of  Jesus,  and  that  they 
had   no   reason   for   returning    to   "  Judaea  ; "    his  whole 
narrative  assumes  that  Bethlehem  in  Judaea  was  the  home, 
and  that  the  parents  of  Jesus  were  only  prevented  from 
returning  thither  by  the  fear  of  Archelaus,  which  forced 
them  to  leave  their  native  city  and  to  take  up  their  abode 
in  "  a  city  called  Nazareth."      Now  it  is  probable  that  St. 
Luke's   account   is  here   the  correct   one,  and   that   the 
erroneous  tradition  found  in  the  First  Gospel  was  a  mere 
inference  from  the  prophecy  that  "  from  Bethlehem  "  there 
should  "  come  forth  a  governor."      But  what  a  light  does 
this  discrepancy  throw  upon  the  uncertainty  of  the  very  ear- 
liest traditions  about  the  infancy  of  Jesus  when  we  find  the 
only  two  Evangelists  who  say  anything  about  it,  differing 
as  to  the  place  where  the  parents  of  Jesus  lived  at  the  time 
when  they  were  married!  I  have  no  doubt  that  St.  Luke 
did  his  best,  in  the  paucity,  or  more  probably  in  the  variety, 
of  conflicting  traditions,  to  select  those  which  seemed  to 
him  most  authoritative  and  most  spiritual.     Even  the  most 
careless  reader  of  the  English  text  must  feel,  without  know- 
ing a  word  of  Greek,  that  St.   Luke's  first  two  chapters 
—which  contain  the  stories  of  the  infancy— are  entirely 

T  2 


276  THE  INCARNATION  {Letter  2$ 

different  from  the  style  of  the  preface  (i.  1-4),  and  from  that 
of  the  rest  of  the  Gospel.  The  two  chapters  sound,  even 
in  English,  like  a  bit  out  of  the  Old  Testament  ;  and  any 
Greek  scholar,  accustomed  to  the  LXX,  would  recognize 
that  they  were  either  a  close  translation  from  the  Aramaic, 
or  written  by  some  one  who  wrote  in  Greek,  modelling 
his  style  on  the  LXX.  It  is  probable  that  they  represent 
some  traditions  of  Aramaic  origin,  the  best  that  St.  Luke 
could  find  when  he  began  to  write  of  the  wonders  that  had 
happened  more  than  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago.  To  those 
who  can  form  the  least  conception  of  the  extent  to  which 
Oriental  tradition  in  the  villages  of  Galilee  might  be 
transmuted  after  an  interval  of  sixty  or  seventy  years,  it 
must  seem  quite  beside  the  mark  to  assert  the  historical 
accuracy  of  the  tradition  concerning  the  Miraculous  Con- 
ception which  St.  Luke  has  incorporated  in  his  Gospel, 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  physician  ;  that  he  took 
pains  to  get  at  the  truth  ;  and  that  he  has  written  a 
masterly  and  exact  account  of  a  shipwreck  which  he,  or 
some  friends  of  his,  may  have  witnessed  in  person. 

The  very  sobriety  of  his  own  preface  ought  to  put  us 
on  our  guard  against  attaching  to  St.  Luke's  history  such 
weight,  for  example,  as  we  attach  to  the  history  of  Thucy- 
dides.  He  says,  it  is  true,  that  he  had  "  traced  the  course 
of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first,  i.e.  from  the  com- 
mencement of  Christ's  life  :  "  but  this  amounts  to  much 
less  than  the  statement  of  Thucydides,  who  tells  us  that 
he  had  personally  inquired  from  those  who  knew  the  facts, 
besides  having  seen  some  of  the  facts  himself  (Thuc.  i.  22). 
He  does  not  say  that  "  the  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of 
the  word  "  had  given  him  any  special  information  :  on  the 
contrary  he  mentions  himself  only  as  one  of  many  who  had 
received  "  traditions  "  from  eye-witnesses,  and  he  implies 
that  a  good  many  of  the  existing  narratives,  based  upon 
these  very  traditions,  were  at  least  so  far  unsatisfactory 


Letter  25]  THE  INCARNATION  277 

that  they  did  not  dispense  with  an  additional  narrative 
from  him.  The  emphasis  which  St.  Luke  lays  on  the  fact 
that  he  has  traced  things  "  from  the  first,"  and  that  he 
writes  "  in  order," — combined  with  the  mention  of 
"  many  "  predecessors  who  have  "  taken  in  hand  "  the 
work  which  he  intends  to  do  over  again — makes  it  almost 
certain  that  some  of  these  Evangelists  had  omitted  all 
account  of  our  Lord's  birth  ;  others  had  not  regarded 
chronological  order  ;  others  had  not  written  "accurately." 
All  these  deficiencies  indicate  a  great  and  general  diffi- 
culty in  obtaining  exact  information ;  and  the  mere 
honesty  of  a  new  attempt,  under  circumstance  so  disad- 
vantageous, Cannot  justify  us  in  attaching  a  very  high 
authority  to  a  tradition  in  this  new  Gospel,  of  a  miraculous 
character,  and  in  a  style  that  appears  to  be  not  St.  Luke's 
own,  referring  to  an  incident  supposed  to  have  occurred 
upwards  of  sixty  years  before.  This  digression  about 
St.  Luke's  Gospel  will  not  be  without  its  use  if  it  leads 
you  to  perceive  that  history,  and  experience,  and  criticism, 
while  they  tend  to  make  us  believe  more,  tend  also  to 
make  us  know  less,  about  Christ's  life  and  doctrine  ; 
I  mean,  that  we  find  we  know  a  little  less  about  the 
historical  facts  of  Christ's  life  than  we  supposed  we 
knew,  while  we  are  led  to  believe  a  great  deal  more  in 
the  divine  depth  and  wisdom  of  His  ideas. 

I  pass  to  the  second  question  which  you  put  to  me, 
"  What  sense,  if  any,  do  you  yourself  attach  to  the  state- 
ment in  the  Creed  that  Christ  was  born  of  a  Virgin  ? " 
Before  I  tell  you  what  sense  I  attach  to  it,  or  rather 
what  sense  seems  to  me  the  only  one  compatible  with 
the  facts,  I  must  honestly  express  my  doubt  whether  any 
sense  that  is  compatible  with  the  facts,  is  also  com- 
patible with  the  words.  To  speak  plainly,  the  statement 
appears  to  be  so  obviously  literal  that  I  shrink  from  inter- 
preting it  metaphorically  ;  and  yet,   if  taken   literally,  it 


278  THE  INCARNATION  [Lettei  25 

appears  to  me  to  be  false.  The  word  "  Virgin"  is  perhaps 
the  only  word  in  the  service  and  ritual  of  the  Church  of 
England  (if  the  Athanasian  Creed  be  left  out  of  considera- 
tion, owing  to  the  non-natural  and  humane  interpretations 
of  it  which  have  been  sanctioned  by  high  authority)  which 
has  made  me  doubt  at  times  whether  I  ought  to  do  official 
work  as  a  minister  in  that  Church.  As  regards  the  "  re- 
surrection of  the  body,"  asserted  in  one  of  the  Creeds, 
I  feel  little  or  no  difficulty  :  for  St.  Paul's  use  of  the  term 
"  spiritual  body"  allows  great  latitude  to  those  who  would 
give  a  spiritual  interpretation  to  the  phrase  in  the  Creed  ; 
and  I  trust  that  I  have  made  it  clear  to  you  that  I  ac- 
cept Christ's  Resurrection  as  a  reality,  though  a  spiritual 
reality.1  But  the  words  implying  the  birth  from  the 
Virgin  stand  on  a  different  footing.  In  the  Resurrection 
of  Jesus  I  believe  that  there  was  a  unique  vision  of  the 
buried  Saviour,  apparent  to  several  disciples  at  a  time  ; 
but  in  the  conception  and  birth  of  Jesus  I  have  no  reason 
for  thinking  that  there  was  anything  unusual  apparent  to 
the  senses.  What  can  I  mean  then  by  saying  that  Jesus 
is  "  born  of  a  Virgin  "  ? 

All  that  I  can  mean  is  this.  Human  generation  does 
not  by  any  means  account  for  the  birth  of  a  new  human 
spirit.  So  far  as  we  are  righteous,  we  all  owe  our  right- 
eousness to  a  spiritual  seed  within  us  ;  "  we  are  not,"  as 
Philo  would  say,  "  the  result  of  generation  but  the  work 
of  the  Unbegotten."  So  far  as  Ave  are  righteous,  we  are 
"  born  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the 
will  of  man,  but  of  God"  (John  i.  13).  But  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  and  believing 

1  I  must  admit  that  a  more  serious  difficulty  is  presented  to  Sponsors  by 
the  interrogative  form  of  the  Creed  in  the  Baptismal  service,  to  which  they 
are  expected  to  reply  in  the  affirmative:  '"Dost  thou  believe  .  .  in  the 
Resurrection  of  the  flesh?"  But  I  can  hardly  think  that  many  clergymen 
svould  wish  to  reject  an  otherwise  eligible  Sponsor  who  confided  to  them  that 
he  could  only  accept  "  flesh"  in  the  sense  of  "body,"  and  that  too  in  the 
Pauline  sense  of  "  spiritual  body." 


Letter  2$]  THE  INCARNATION  279 

that  He  was  uniquely  and  entirely  righteous  ;  and  there- 
fore we  say  that  He  was  uniquely  and  entirely  born  of 
God.  In  all  human  generation  there  must  be  some  con- 
genital divine  act,  if  a  righteous  soul  is  to  be  produced  ; 
and  in  the  generation  of  Christ  there  was  a  unique  con- 
genital act  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  Word  of  God  which 
in  various  degrees  inspires  every  righteous  human  soul 
(none  can  say  how  soon  in  its  existence)  did  not  inspire 
Jesus,  but  was  (to  speak  in  metaphor)  totally  present  in 
Jesus  from  the  first  so  as  to  exclude  all  imperfection  of 
humanity.  Human  unrighteousness — such  as  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  attributing  to  human  generation — there  was,  in 
this  case,  none.  Therefore  we  say  that  the  generation  of 
Jesus  was  not  human  but  divine. 

So  much  I  can  honestly  say  because  I  heartily  believe 
it.  How  far  one  is  justified  in  putting  so  strained  an  in- 
terpretation on  the  words  "  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary  "  — 
even  in  the  Church  of  England,  where  simultaneous  con- 
servatism and  progress  have  been  bought  at  the  cost  of 
many  strained  interpretations — is  a  question  on  which  I 
may  perhaps  hereafter  say  a  word  or  two,  but  not  now. 
Meantime  let  me  merely  add  my  conviction  that  there 
may  have  been  a  time  when  this  illusion  of  the  Miraculous 
Conception  did  more  good  than  harm.  In  former  days, 
that  spiritual  truth  which  we  can  now  disentangle  from 
the  story  of  the  Miraculous  Conception  may  have  been 
conveyed  by  means  of  it  to  hearts  which  would  have 
otherwise  never  recognized  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God. 
It  was  surely  better  then,  and  it  is  better  now,  that  men 
should  believe  the  great  truth  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God, 
at  the  cost  of  believing  (provided  they  can  honestly 
believe)  the  untruth  that  Jesus  was  not  the  son  of 
Joseph,  than  that  they  should  altogether  fail  to  recog- 
nize His  divine  Sonship,  because  they  were  alive 
to  the   fact    that    He    was    born    of  human    parents    in 


2So  THE  INCARNATION  [Letter  25 

accordance  with  the  laws  of  humanity.  But  in  these  days 
the  doctrine  of  the  Miraculous  Conception  seems  to  me 
fraught  with  evil  ;  partly  because  the  weakness  of  the 
evidence  makes  the  narrative  a  stumbling-block  for  many 
who  are  taught  to  consider  this  doctrine  essential  and  who 
cannot  bring  themselves  to  believe  it  ;  partly  because  it 
tends  to  sanction  a  false  and  monastic  ideal  of  life  ;  to 
separate  Jesus  from  common  humanity  and  from  human 
love  and  sympathy  ;  and  to  encourage  false  notions  about 
a  material  Resurrection  of  the  body  of  Jesus,  which 
naturally  result  in  a  false,  bewildering,  and  disorderly 
expectation  of  a  material  Resurrection  for  ourselves. 


PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL         281 


XXVI 

My  dear , 

You  ask  me  whether  one  who  has  seceded  from 
miraculous  to  non-miraculous  Christianity  still  finds  him- 
self able  to  pray  as  before.  But  towards  the  end  of  your 
letter  you  amend  your  question.  You  are  "  quite  sure," 
you  are  pleased  to  say,  from  what  you  know  of  me,  that  I 
shall  "  answer  this  question  affirmatively,  though  in 
defiance  of  all  logic  :  "  and  therefore,  anticipating  my 
answer,  you  state  your  objection  to  it  beforehand,  and  ask 
me  how  I  can  meet  your  objection,  which  is  to  this  effect  : 
"  If  the  laws  of  nature  are  never  suspended,  then  it  is 
absurd,  or  perhaps  impious,  to  pray  for  that  which  implies 
their  suspension.  For  example,  a  friend  of  mine  may  be 
in  a  stage  of  disease  so  fatally  advanced  that,  without  a 
suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature,  it  is  no  more  possible 
that  he  should  recover  from  the  disease  than  that  his  body 
should  rise  from  the  grave.  According  to  the  tenets  of 
your  non-miraculous  Christianity,  must  I  not  abstain  from 
praying  that  he  may  recover  ?  " 

I  do  not  see  any  great  difficulty  here.  Change  the 
hypothesis  for  a  moment.  Suppose  your  friend  to  be  no 
longer  living,  but  dead.  Are  you  willing — would  you  be 
willing,  even  were  you  the  most  orthodox  believer  in 
miraculous  Christianity— to  pray  that  the  body  of  your 
dead  friend  might  arise  revivified  from  the  grave  a  week 
after  he  had  been  laid  in  it  ?  You  know  you  would  not  be 
willing.     Why  not  ?     You  cannot  say  "  Because  it  is  im- 


282  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  [Letter  26 

possible,"  for  you  would  admit  (on  the  supposition  of  your 
being  a  believer  in  the  miraculous)  not  only  that  it  is 
possible,  but  that  it  has  actually  been  done  in  times  past. 
But  you  would  feel,  I  am  sure,  that  you  dare  not,  and 
ought  not,  to  pray  for  this  object,  because  such  a  prayer 
would  be  a  revolt  against  that  established  order  of  things 
which  you  recognize  to  be  a  manifestation  of  God's  present 
will.  I  say  "  God's  present  will,"  because  you  do  not  (if 
you  agree  with  me)  regard  death  as  being  in  accordance 
with  God's  future  will  :  it  is  an  evil,  sprung,  not  from  God, 
but  from  evil,  out  of  which  God  is  working  good.  But 
He  bids  us  acquiesce  in  it  during  our  present  imperfect 
state  of  existence  ;  and  hence,  though  you  believe  He 
will  ultimately  destroy  death,  you  do  not  feel  justified  in 
praying  that  its  present  operation  may  be  neutralized  by 
a  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

Now  to  return  to  your  own  supposition  that  your  friend 
is  not  dead,  but  merely  in  danger  of  death.  Health  and 
life  are  dependent  upon  many  complex  causes,  among 
which  (it  will  be  admitted  by  all)  are  those  mysterious 
fluctuations  of  the  thoughts  and  emotions,  which  I  believe 
in  many  cases  to  proceed — I  speak  in  a  metaphor — 
straight  from  God  Himself.  To  one  who  believes  that 
the  spirits  of  men  are  in  constant  communion  with  the 
all-sustaining  Spirit  of  the  Creator,  the  thoughts  of  men 
may  well  seem  to  be  as  dependent  upon  their  divine 
Origin  as  the  air  in  my  little  room  is  at  this  moment 
dependent  upon  the  changes  of  the  circumambient 
atmosphere.  Of  course,  if  you  are  a  thorough-going, 
scientific  hope-nothing  and  trust-nothing,  such  a  belief 
as  this  appears  to  you  an  idle  dream.  From  your 
point  of  view,  you  are  a  machine ;  your  friend  is  a 
machine  ;  all  men  are  machines  ;  the  world  is  a  machine  ; 
the  action  and  inter-action  of  all  these  animate  and  inani- 
mate machines  is  predetermined,  even  to  the  minutest 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,   HELL  2S3 

movement  of  a  limb,  or  most  fleeting  shade  of  thought,  in 
each  one  of  the  myriads  of  human  mechanisms  called 
men. 

The  thorough-going  materialist,  when  he  rebukes  his 
son  and  tells  him  that  he  "  ought  not  to  have  "  told  a  lie, 
knows  perfectly  well  that  his  son  could  not  possibly  help 
telling  that  lie,  and  that  he  was  bound  by  all  the  laws  of 
nature  to  tell  it.  The  materialist  father  is,  in  fact,  telling 
a  lie  himself ;  only  more  deliberately  than  the  little  son. 
He  is  using  words  which  have  no  true  meaning  for  him,  as 
a  kind  of  oil  to  grease  the  wheels  of  the  little  machine 
before  him,  having  learned  by  accumulated  experience 
that  this  lying' phrase,  "You  ought  to  have,"  has  for  many 
thousands  of  years  proved  a  very  effective  kind  of  oil,  and 
that  the  true  and  scientific  phrase,  "  It  would  have  been 
better  if  you  could  have,  but  you  could  not,"  would  be 
wholly  inefficacious.  But  since  it  is  obvious  that  this  view 
of  existence  converts  all  moral  language,  and  almost  all 
the  higher  relations  of  life,  into  one  gigantic  lie,  I  make 
no  apology  at  all  for  putting  it  by  with  contempt  as  being 
beneath  the  consideration  of  a  child  of  ten — at  which  age, 
as  far  as  I  remember  I  grappled  with  this  question  of 
predestination,  and  settled  it  (so  far  as  I  was  concerned, 
for  ever)  by  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  "  it  does  not 
work"  Now  when  you  have  once  given  up,  as  unwork- 
able, the  theory  that  all  our  thoughts  and  emotions  spring 
necessarily  from  antecedent  material  causes,  you  have 
bidden  good-bye  to  Knowledge,  so  far  as  concerns  the 
origin  of  human  thought,  and  you  are  thrown  back  upon 
Faith.  I  believe  therefore,  and  I  make  no  apology  for 
my  belief,  that  the  mysterious  fluctuations  of  human 
thought  and  will  may  sometimes  proceed  from  God  with- 
out the  intervention  of  material  causes,  perhaps  in  virtue 
of  the  existence  of  some  invisible  law  of  union  by  which 
the  souls  of  men  are  united  to  God  and  to  one  another. 


284  PRAYER,   HEAVEN,   HELL  [Letter  26 

This  being  my  belief — which  at  all  events  does  not  contain 
so  many  and  such  perpetually-recurring  inconsistencies  as 
the  belief  of  your  thorough-going  materialist — you  will 
understand,  without  much  further  explanation,  when  and 
why  I  should  pray  even  for  those  of  whom  the  physician 
is  inclined  to  despair.  Faith  and  hope,  have,  before  now, 
worked  such  wonders  in  healing,  that  "  while  there  is  life 
there  is  hope  "  has  passed  into  a  proverb.  I  cannot  be 
sure  that  my  prayers  might  not  have  some  kind  of  direct 
power — by  a  kind  of  brain-wave  such  as  we  have  heard  of 
lately — in  affecting  the  emotions  and  spirits  of  the  sufferer. 
It  is  seldom  that  even  a  physician  can  speak  with  certainty 
about  the  immediate  issue  of  a  disease  :  and  whatsoever 
is  uncertain  is  (if  it  be  also  right)  a  reasonable  subject  for 
prayer.  But  if  I  were  myself  absolutely  convinced  that 
there  was  no  chance  of  my  friend's  recovery  without  a 
suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature,  I  should  feel  that  prayer 
rightly  and  naturally  gave  way  to  resignation. 

No  one  however  who  is  in  the  habit  of  praying  will 
think  it  necessary  to  spend  much  time  or  thought  in 
discriminating  exactly  between  that  which  may  be,  and 
that  which  cannot  possibly  be.  He  must  know  that,  very 
often,  where  his  prayer  trenches  on  the  province  of  the 
material,  the  line  cannot  be  drawn  except  by  an  expert  in 
science,  which  he  may  not  happen  to  be  ;  and  besides,  in 
the  mood  of  prayer,  he  will  feel  that  the  scientific  and 
discriminating  spirit  is  out  of  place.  He  is  not  thinking 
of  things  scientifically,  but  spiritually,  putting  his  wishes 
before  the  Father  in  heaven,  and  content  to  couple  each 
wish  with  an  "  If  it  be  possible."  Sometimes  he  learns, 
after  constant  repetition,  that  the  prayer  is  an  unfit  one, 
and  he  discontinues  it ;  in  that  case  he  has  gained  by  his 
prayer  a  closer  insight  into,  and  conformity  with,  the  will 
of  God.  In  other  cases  he  continues  his  prayer  and 
receives  an  answer  to  it— either  the  answer  that  he  him- 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,   HEAVEN,   HELL  285 

self  desires,  or  some  other  perhaps,  quite  different  from 
that  which  he  expected,  but  one  which  he  ultimately  re- 
cognizes to  be  the  best.  But  there  will  be  cases  where  he 
will  continue  his  prayer,  feeling  it  to  be  right  and  natural, 
although  he  receives  no  answer  to  it  at  all,  so  far  as  he  can 
discern.  For  he  will  feel  quite  certain  that  no  genuine 
prayer  is  wasted.  Our  spirits,  or  our  angels — to  use  the 
language  of  metaphor — are  not  on  earth  :  they  sit  together 
in  heaven,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  heart  of  God  ;  and  whenever 
one  of  us  can  conceive  a  genuinely  unselfish  and  righteous 
wish  for  a  brother  spirit  and  wing  it  with  faith  so  that  it 
flies  up  to  heaven — a  flight  by  no  means  so  easy  or  so 
common  as  we  suppose,  and  probably  not  often  flown, 
unless  the  arrow  is  feathered  by  deeds  and  pains  as  well 
as  words — then  it  not  only  brings  back  a  blessing  upon  the 
wisher  but  also  thrills  through  the  spiritual  assembly  above 
and  comes  back  as  a  special  blessing  to  the  person  prayed 
for.  But  need  I  add  that  this  is  not  a  process  to  be  per- 
formed mechanically  ?  There  is  no  recipe  for  effectual 
prayer. 

But,  to  come  down  from  metaphors,  let  me  attempt  to 
answer  your  question,  "  What  difference  of  attitude  in 
prayer  will  there  be  between  the  believer  in  natural,  and 
the  believer  in  miraculous,  Christianity  ? "  As  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  there  will  be  very  little  ;  except  that  the 
former  will  be  rather  more  disposed  to  ask,  before  uttering 
a  prayer,  how  far  the  granting  of  it  might  indirectly  affect 
others.  Logically  and  theoretically  there  ought  to  be  a 
great  deal  of  difference  ;  for  if  the  believer  in  the  miracu- 
lous were  consistent,  he  might  naturally  pray  that  a  miracle 
might  be  performed  for  him,  as  it  has  been  for  others, 
for  a  good  purpose.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  prayers 
of  children  trained  in  orthodoxy  are  thus  sometimes 
consistent.  I  dare  say  one  might  find  a  child  who  has 
prayed  that  the  sun  might  stand  still  that  he  might  have 


286  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,   HELL  [Letter  26 

a  longer  holiday.  And  why  not  now — from  the  child's 
point  of  view — as  well  as  formerly  ?  But  I  suppose 
few  men  in  England,  now,  even  of  the  strictly  orthodox, 
are  in  this  puerile  stage.  Almost  all  full-grown  English 
Protestants  recognize  that,  although  miracles  were  freely 
performed  from  the  year  4004  B.C.  to,  say  A.D.  61  or  there- 
abouts— when  St.  Paul  shook  off  the  serpent  and  took  no 
harm — yet  "  the  age  of  miracles  is  now  past."  Yet  I  have 
heard  of  men  of  business  who  make  a  point  of  praying 
earnestly  on  the  subject  of  commercial  speculations,  the 
rise  and  fall  of  consols,  the  price  of  sugar  and  the  like. 
Will  any  one  maintain  that  people  are  not  the  worse  for 
such  prayers  as  these,  or  that  the  believer  in  natural 
Christianity  is  not  a  gainer  by  losing  the  desire  and  the 
power  to  utter  them  ?  On  the  whole,  I  see  but  one 
subject  of  prayer  mentioned  in  our  English  Prayer-book, 
as  to  which  natural  Christianity  would  probably  dictate 
silence  :  I  mean  the  weather.  It  might  be  argued  that, 
"  since  the  weather  is  affected  by  human  action  (by  the 
clearing  of  forests,  draining  of  marshes,  and  so  on),  and 
since  prayers  affect  human  action,  therefore  they  do  affect 
the  weather  indirectly,  and  may  affect  it  di7'ectly."  But 
from  "  indirect "  to  "  direct  "  is  a  great  leap  ;  and  I  am 
moved  toward  resignation  rather  than  prayer,  by  the 
thought  that,  in  revealing  to  us  more  and  more  of  the 
extent  of  the  causes  and  effects  of  meteorological  pheno- 
mena, God  seems  to  be  shewing  us  that,  in  asking  for 
weather  that  suits  ourselves,  we  may  be  asking  for 
weather  that  may  not  suit  others.  I  should  be  sorry  to 
see  harvest  prayers  excluded  from  our  Church  service  ; 
but  I  think  they  should  express  our  hope  and  trust  in 
God's  orderly  government  of  the  seasons,  beseeching  Him 
to  bestow  on  the  husbandman  patience  and  skill  so  as  to 
meet  and  improve  adversity,  and  on  the  nation  thrift  and 
frugality  so  as  to  avoid  waste. 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  287 

Since  writing  the  last  paragraph  I  was  interrupted  ;  and 
now,  returning  to  my  letter,  I  feel  strongly  inclined  to 
cancel  the  last  two  or  three  pages  of  apologetic  argumen- 
tation ;  arguing  about  prayer  seems  so  absurdly  useless. 
Yet  perhaps  my  remarks  may  weigh  for  something  with 
you  in  your  present  oscillation.  They  may  possibly 
prevent  you  from  giving  up,  in  a  moment  of  virtuous 
logic,  a  habit  which,  once  discontinued,  is  not  easily 
resumed.  Let  them  pass  then  ;  but  let  them  not  pass 
without  a  protest  that  they  by  no  means  express  my  sense 
of  the  vital  necessity  of  prayer  for  a  Christian.  To  me 
it  seems  the  very  breath  of  our  spiritual  life,  as  needful 
for  peace  and'union  with  God  as  communion  between 
children  and  parents  is  needful  for  domestic  concord. 
Without  it,  .faith  must  speedily  vanish.  Even  a  com- 
paratively dull  and  lifeless  petition  at  stated  intervals  has 
some  value  as  a  sign-post,  indicating  the  road  on  which 
we  ought  to  be  travelling  though  our  feet  may  be  straying 
elsewhere.  But  in  truth  real  Christian  prayer  (mostly 
silent)  should  be,  as  St.  Paul  says  "  without  ceasing ; " 
for  prayer  is  but  aspiration  and  desire,  emerging  into 
shape.  When  a  man  has  reached  such  a  height  that  he 
has  ceased  to  wish  to  be  something  better  than  he  is, 
then  and  then  only  may  he  cease  to  pray. 

One  kind  of  prayer  at  all  events  I  have  felt  able  to 
retain  which  seems  to  me  of  far  more  value  than  the 
prayer  for  fair  weather — I  mean  prayer  for  the  dead.  I 
do  not  deny  that,  when  coupled  with  superstitious  views 
about  heaven  and  hell,  the  custom  of  praying  for  the  dead 
may  result  in  superstition,  and  even  in  the  encouragement 
of  immorality  ;  and  the  hired  and  conventional  prayers 
for  the  dead  prevalent  in  the  sixteenth  century  appear  to 
me  to  have  constituted  an  abuse  against  which  our  Eng- 
lish Reformers  did  well  to  protest.  But  these  abuses  and 
corruptions  seem  to  me  accidental,  and  quite  insufficient 


288  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  [Letter  26 

to  deter  us  from  use  of  the  most  helpful  of  spiritual 
habits.  I  do  not  propose  to  argue  about  it,  but  you  may- 
like  to  know  the  sort  of  accident  by  which  I  was  led  to 
form  this  habit,  and  the  practical  reasons  for  which  I 
clung  to  it,  and  still  cling  to  it,  with  the  deepest  convic- 
tion that  it  is  not  only  spiritually  useful,  but  also  based  on 
spiritual  truth. 

Many  years  ago  a  brother  of  mine  was  drowned  at  sea 
through  the  sudden  capsizing  of  a  vessel  by  night.  When 
the  news  came,  I  was  at  first  distracted  between  an  in- 
tense desire  to  pray  as  before,  and  a  kind  of  instinctive 
and  general  repugnance  to  all  prayers  for  the  dead  as 
being  "  a  Romanist  practice."  All  the  books  I  had  read, 
and  all  the  notions  I  had  formed,  about  the  fixed  future  of 
the  dead,  suggested  that  such  prayers  were  useless,  if  not 
blasphemous.  On  the  other  side  there  was  no  argument 
at  all,  nothing  but  a  vague  strong  desire  to  pray.  The 
painful  conflict  of  that  night — a  conflict,  as  it  seems  to  me 
now,  between  true  natural  religion  and  the  false  appear- 
ance of  revealed  religion — is  still  present  to  my  recollec- 
tion. At  last  it  occurred  to  me  that  more  than  a  month 
had  elapsed  between  the  death  and  our  knowledge  of  the 
death,  and  throughout  all  those  thirty  days  my  prayers 
had  gone  up  to  God  for  one  whose  soul  was  no  longer 
upon  earth.  Were  those  prayers  wasted  ?  I  could  not 
believe  it.  Besides,  we  had  not  yet  received  full  details  of 
the  loss  of  the  vessel.  It  was  just  possible  that  my  brother 
might  have  been  saved  in  one  of  the  ship's  boats  :  he  might 
be  still  living,  and  in  sore  need  of  help  :  how  monstrous, 
if  it  were  so,  that  I  should  in  such  a  crisis  cease  to  pray 
for  him  !  So  with  doubt  and  trembling  I  still  continued 
my  custom,  fashioning  some  kind  of  prayer  to  suit  the 
emergency.  While  I  was  in  this  oscillating  state  of  mind, 
news  came  that  a  second  boatful,  and  almost  immediately 
afterwards  that  a  third,  had  been  picked  up  at  sea.     My 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  289 

brother  was  not  in  either  :  but  why  might  there  not  be  a 
fourth  ?  For  some  time,  with  less  doubt  than  before,  I  con- 
tinued to  pray.  Days,  weeks,  months  rolled  on,  and  now 
all  hope  had  slipped  away  ;  but  the  habit  was  now  fixed. 
I  could  not,  or  would  not,  break  it.  Praying  day  and 
night  for  one  who  was  possibly  living  ;  just  possibly  living  ; 
probably  not  living ;  certainly  dead — I  had  learned  to 
realize  the  presence  of  my  brother1  s  spirit,  as  very  near 
and  close  to  me,  as  one  with  whom  I  was  still  in  some 
kind  of  communion  ;  and  now  to  drop  his  name  out  of 
my  prayers,  simply  because  I  should  never  touch  his 
hand  again  in  this  world,  seemed  a  faithless,  a  wicked,  a 
cruel  act.  The  prayer  could  not  indeed  remain  the  same 
in  circumstances  so  completely  changed ;  I  could  of 
course  no  longer  pray  that  the  dead  might  be  restored  to 
me  on  earth  :  but  it  was  still  open  to  me  to  make  mention 
of  his  name,  and  to  beseech  God  that  he  and  I  might 
meet  again  in  heaven  :  and  thus,  with  a  curious  kind  of 
compromise,  worthy  of  a  less  youthful  theologian,  I  cir- 
cumvented my  own  orthodoxy  by  still  praying  in  reality 
for  my  brother  while  I  appeared  to  be  praying  for  myself. 
More  than  seven-and-twenty  years  have  now  passed  away, 
but  not  a  night  or  morning  has  passed  without  the  men- 
tion of  that  familiar  name  ;  and  I  entreat  you  to  believe 
me  that,  next  to  the  power  of  Christ  Himself  upon  the 
soul,  I  have  not  found,  nor  can  I  imagine,  any  influence 
so  potent  as  this  habit  of  praying  for  the  dead,  to  detach 
the  mind  from  petty  and  visible  things,  to  unlock  the 
spiritual  world,  to  carry  the  soul  up  to  the  very  source 
and  centre  of  spiritual  life,  and  to  bring  us  into  faithful 
communion  with  the  Father  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh. 

You  see  I  have  kept  my  promise  of  not  arguing  on 
this  matter.  I  have  simply  told  you  how  I  have  longed 
and  doubted  ;  how  my  doubts  were  dissipated  by  prac- 
tice ;  and  what  strength  I  have  personally  derived  from 

U 


2go  PRAYER,   HEAVEN,   HELL  [Letter  26 

the  practice.  Probably  this  will  seem  to  you,  if  interest- 
ing, at  all  events  inadequate.  "  Logically,"  you  will 
perhaps  say  to  yourself,  "he  ought  to  have  attempted 
first  to  convince  me  that  the  eternal  state  of  the  dead  is 
not  finally  determined  at  the  moment  of  death  ;  so  that 
prayer  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  have  some  power 
to  change  their  condition.  He  ought  to  have  told  me 
whether  he  believes  in  a  Purgatory,  or  in  a  limited  Hell  ; 
whether  he  is  a  Universalist ;  or  whether  he  believes  in 
the  annihilation  of  all  who  are  not  to  be  saved.  In  a 
word,  he  ought  to  have  given  me  a  full  account  of  his 
theory  about  the  condition  of  the  dead,  before  he  com- 
mends to  me  the  habit  of  praying  for  them." 

Here  I  fear  I  shall  terribly  disappoint  you  ;  but,  at  the 
risk  of  whatever  disappointment,  I  will  confess  to  you  the 
whole  truth.  This  part  of  my  Manual  of  Theology  has 
large  print,  large  margin,  and  several  blank  pages.  I 
believe  some  things  with  such  force  and  clearness  that  I 
prefer  to  say  I  do  not  believe  them — I  see  them  :  but 
about  many  other  things  which  most  people  believe,  I 
know  little  or  nothing.  Do  I  believe  in  a  Hell  ?  Yes,  as 
firmly  as  I  believe  in  a  Heaven  ;  but  not  in  your  Hell 
perhaps,  and  certainly  not  in  the  ordinary  guide-books  to 
Hell  and  Heaven.  Perhaps  some  would  call  my  Hell 
"merely  retribution,"  or  "an  illogical  and  ill-defined 
Purgatory  ; "  and  from  their  point  of  view  they  could  be 
right  in  complaining  of  its  indefiniteness  ;  for  they  profess 
to  know  all  about  it  and  to  be  able  to  define  it.  But  from 
my  point  of  view  I  am  equally  right  in  speaking  inde- 
finitely ;  for  I  profess  to  have  only  a  glimpse  of  it.  Of 
the  principles  of  Hell  and  Heaven  I  am  certain,  but  of  the 
details  I  am  entirely  ignorant.  I  know  nothing  whatever, 
and  I  know  that  no  one  else  knows  anything  whatever, 
about  the  state  of  the  dead  ;  except  that  they  are  just  as 
much  in  God's  hand  when  dead  as  when  living,  and  that 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,   HEAVEN,  HELL  291 

He  will  ultimately  do  the  best  thing  for  each  ;  but  what 
that  "  best  thing  "  may  be  I  cannot  tell  in  detail,  although 
I  am  very  sure  that  it  will  be  one  thing  for  St.  Francis 
and  quite  another  for  Nero.  For  the  rest,  all  the  elaborate 
structures  and  fancy-fabrics  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  Purga- 
tory, Paradise,  Limbo,  and  other  regions,  whether  theo- 
logians or  poets  be  the  architects,  appear  to  me  built 
upon  the  flimsiest  foundations,  tags  of  texts,  fragments  of 
words,  quagmires  of  metaphor,  quicksands  of  hyperbole. 
No  ;  such  real  knowledge — or  shall  we  say  such  convic- 
tion ? — as  we  have  about  the  eternal  future  of  the  dead,  is 
to  be  based,  not  upon  argument  or  inference  from  minute 
and  disputable  interpretations  of  small  portions  of  Scrip- 
ture, but  mainly  upon  our  faith  in  the  divine  righteousness 
and  power.  You  will  not,  I  hope,  misunderstand  my 
words  that  "  God  will  do  the  best  thing  for  each,"  or  draw 
from  them  the  inference,  "  Then  he  is  a  Universalist  after 
all."  I  took  for  granted — I  hope  I  was  not  wrong — that 
you  would  remember  the  definition  of  justice  which  you 
have  read  in  Plato.  In  fact  therefore  I  merely  expressed 
in  those  words  my  conviction  that  God  would  be  "just" 
to  us  after  death.1  Might  we  not  also  define  the  highest 
mercy,  in  the  same  terms  in  which  we  define  the  highest 
justice,  as  being  the  feeling  that  prompts  us  to  "  do  what  is 
best  for  each  "  ?  And,  if  so,  does  it  not  seem  to  follow  that 
in  Hell  God  will  not  cease  to  be  merciful,  and  in  Heaven 
God  will  not  cease  to  be  just  ?  And  hence  are  we  not 
brought  close  to  the  conclusion  that  Heaven  and  Hell  are 
not  really  places,  but  the  diverse  results  of  the  operation 
of  the  Eternal — the  just  Mercy,  the  merciful  Justice — upon 
the  diverse  dead  ?  But  here  the  question  widens  and 
deepens   into  expanses  and  depths  altogether  too  vast 

1  Has  not  some  confusion  of  thought  arisen  from  a  habit  of  confusing 
"just"  with  "severe"?  I  believe  some  men  would  feel  more  reverently 
towards  God,  if  they  would  speak,  not  of  His  "justice,"  but  of  His 
"fairness." 

U    2 


292  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  [Letter  26 

and  profound  for  me,  and  I  give  up  the  problem.  All  that 
I  know  is,  that  there  will  be  hereafter  a  just  retribution. 

Yet  if  I  am  to  tell  you  my  own  conjectural  imaginations 
— for  who  can  help  at  times  imagining  what  the  infinite 
unknown  may  be,  however  loth  he  may  be  to  insist  or 
dogmatize  about  it,  or  even  to  bestow  much  attention  on 
it,  when  the  urgent  present  presses  its  superior  claims  ? 
— I  will  say  for  myself  that  1  cannot  believe  I  shall 
have  served  all  my  apprenticeship  to  righteousness  in 
my  brief  life  upon  this  earth,  or  that  I  shall  be  fit 
immediately  after  death,  for  that  closest  communion  with 
God  which  appears  to  me  the  Heaven  of  Heavens.  Some 
cleansing  retribution,  some  further  purification,  seems  to 
me  necessary  and  likely  for  myself — and,  I  must  add,  for 
the  greater  number  of  those  human  beings  with  whom 
I  have  had  to  do — before  we  attain  to  that  blessed 
consummation. 

"So  you  believe  in  a  Purgatory  then?"  How  do  I 
know?  Say  rather,  I  conjecture  there  may  be  many 
heavens.  In  any  case,  I  find  it  very  easy  to  imagine  a 
retribution  and  a  purification  that  shall  be  purely  spi- 
ritual, without  having  recourse  to  any  material  flames 
or  physical  horrors.  Some  people  find  a  difficulty  in  this 
notion  :  they  consider  it,  but  deliberately  put  it  aside  ;  as 
if  mere  remorse,  sorrow,  and  self-condemnation,  could 
never  be  bitter  enough  to  constitute  a  just  Hell.  I  do  not 
think  they  have  ever  realized — perhaps  they  have  never 
tried  to  realize— the  pain  that  may  be  felt  by  a  spirit  sitting 
alone,  away  from  this  familiar  world  and  every  well-known 
face,  and  quietly  judging  and  condemning  itself.  A  mere 
accident,  a  ludicrous  accident,  once  gave  me  a  moment's 
experience  of  this  feeling,  and  I  have  never  been  able  to 
forget  it,  never  been  able  to  put  aside  the  conviction  that 
that  feeling,  intensified,  might  constitute  Hell. 

It  happened  in  this   way.      Some  years   ago,  before 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  29s 

nitrous   oxide  had  come  into  very  general    use    among 
dentists,  I  went  to  have  a  tooth  extracted,  and  determined 
to  try  the  gas.     Perhaps   I  had  some  misgivings  that  it 
was  a  little  cowardly  ;  perhaps  I  was  a  little  nervous  ;  in 
any  case  I  remember  at  the  last  moment  thinking  that  I 
should  like  to  be  conscious  of  the  precise  moment  when 
unconsciousness  came ;  I  remember  struggling  to  retain 
consciousness— even  when    a  tell-tale  throbbing  in   the 
temples  shewed  that  something  new  was  going  on — pro- 
testing to  myself  that  the  gas  had  "  no  power,"  "  no  power 
at  all  yet,"  "  I  don't  believe  it's  going  to  have  any  power  " 
— till  the  portcullis  came  down.     I  suppose  the  conse- 
quence was  that  I  inhaled  rather  more  than  was  usual ; 
and  when  I  came  to  myself  I  heard  the  voices  of  the 
dentist  and  the  physician — a  long  way  off,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  but  with  perfect  distinctness— saying  that  "  he  was  a 
long  time  coming  to "  and  they  did  not  "  quite  like  the 
look  of  things,"  and  so  on.     Meantime  I  lay  motionless 
and  without  power  either  to  move  or  speak,  but  perfectly 
conscious.     I  took  in  the  whole  situation  at  once.     I  was 
dead.     I  had  passed  into  another  state  of  existence.     I 
could  think  more  clearly  than  before.      I   was  a  spirit. 
And  then  the  thought  came  pressing  in  upon  me,  as  I 
reviewed  my  whole  life  and  the  manner   of  my  death, 
that  to  avoid  a  little  pain  I  had  done  a  wrong  thing  and 
had  deserted  those  who  needed  me  and  would  miss  me. 
No  fear  possessed  me,  not  the  slightest  fear,  of  any  ex- 
ternal punishment  for   the  fault  which  I  thought  I  had 
committed  :  but  in  a  detached  solitude  I  seemed  to  be 
quietly  and  coldly  sitting  in  judgment  upon  myself,  im- 
partially hearing  what  I  had  to  say  in  self-defence,  rejecting 
it  as  inadequate,  and  passing  against  myself  the  verdict 
of  Guilty.      Painful,  increasingly  painful,  the  burden  of 
this  self-condemnation  seemed  to  press  and  crush  me  down 
more  and  more  past  power  of  bearing,  so  that  at  last, 


294  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  {Letter  26 

when  in  one  moment  I  recovered  both  power  of  motion 
and  knowledge  that  I  was  alive  again,  I  leapt  up  from  the 
dentist's  arm-chair,  and,  without  taking  the  least  notice  of 
the  two  operators,  I  gave  vent  to  my  feelings  by  shouting 
aloud  the  well-known  words  from  Clarence's  dream — 


"  — and  for  a  space 
Could  not  believe  but  that  I  was  in  hell." 


I  shall  not  easily  forget  the  look  of  mingled  humour 
and  horror  with  which  the  dentist  replied,  "Well,  sir, 
considering  you  are  a  clergyman,  I  should  have  hoped 
it  might  have  been  the  other  place."  I  tried  to  explain. 
I  assured  him  that  it  was  a  quotation  from  Shakespeare ; 
that  I  had  not  really  believed  that  I  was  in  the  place 
commonly  called  Hell ;  and  so  on.  But  I  am  quite  sure 
my  explanations  were  utterly  ineffectual ;  and  to  this  day 
I  probably  labour  under  the  suspicion,  in  the  minds  of 
at  least  two  worthy  persons,  of  having  committed  some 
horrible  crime  by  which  my  conscience  is  racked  with 
agony.  In  reality,  however,  it  was  a  small  offence,  if  any, 
for  which  I  suffered  that  bad  quarter  of  a  minute  ;  and 
I  have  often  since  thought  that,  if  the  mind  is  capable  of 
inflicting  such  pain  upon  itself  for  a  venial  error,  those 
pangs  must  be  terrible  indeed  with  which  our  sinful  souls 
may  be  forced  to  scourge  themselves  when  we  judicially 
review  the  actions  of  a  selfish  life  with  a  compulsory 
knowledge  of  all  the  evil,  direct  and  indirect,  which  we  have 
wrought,  and  when  we  realize  at  last — ah,  how  differently 
from  the  dull,  decorous,  conventional  contrition  with  which 
we  droned  out  the  words  on  earth,  kneeling  on  the  hassocks 
in  the  family  pew— that  "  we  have  left  undone  those  things 
which  we  ought  to  have  done,  and  done  those  things 
which  we  ought  not  to  have  done." 

But  why  do  I  thus   discourse  in  detail  upon  a  subject 


Lette»  26}  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  295 

about  which  I  have  admitted  that  I  know  no  details?  It 
is  in  order  to  shew  you  that  though  I  do  not  know  much, 
the  little  I  do  know  greatly  influences  me.  The  thought 
of  a  material  Hell  has  probably  contributed  largely  to 
insanity,  and  has  exercised  a  baneful  influence  upon  many 
women  and  children  ;  but  the  majority  of  healthy  men  who 
profess  to  believe  in  a  pit  of  flame  are  little  influenced  by  it. 
It  is  so  horrible,  so  unnatural,  so  unjust,  that  in  their  heart 
of  hearts  they  feel  sure  the  good  God  cannot  mean  it ;  He 
will  let  them  off ;  or  they  will  get  off  somehow — by  absolu- 
tion, by  forensic  justification,  by  baptism,  by  uncovenanted 
mercies,  or  what  not.  This  is  but  natural.  How  can  it 
not  be  natural  to  believe  that  an  unnatural  and  arbitrary 
Hell  may  be  dispensed  with  by  an  unnatural  and  arbitrary 
indulgence  ?  I  have  no  such  consolations.  With  me, 
Hell  is  a  different  thing  altogether  :  it  is  natural,  it  is 
inevitable,  it  is  just,  it  is  merciful.  Not  a  day  passes  but 
I  think  of  it  and  anticipate  it  in  some  sort  for  myself 
and  my  friends.  Tout  sepayera  :  this  act,  I  say,  or  this 
neglect,  was  wrong,  and  must  have  been  injurious  :  the 
doers  cannot  escape  from  the  consequences  of  it  ;  I  do 
not  wish  to  escape  from  the  consequences  of  it.  God  will 
work  good  out  of  evil  ;  but  He  will  be  just,  not  indulgent. 
I  do  not  want  Him  to  be  indulgent.  Thus  Heaven  and 
Hell,  impending  over  the  routine  of  my  every-day  life, 
become  to  me  practical  and  potent  realities  ;  but  they  are 
real  to  me  because  the  conceptions  I  have  formed  of  them 
are  in  accordance  with  the  profound  laws  of  spiritual 
nature,  and  quite  independent  of  the  conflicting  fancies  of 
theologians. 

Ask  me  what  I  trust  to  be  in  Heaven,  and  I  can  give  you 
no  answer  save  that  one  which  I  have  often  given  you 
before — a  being  capable  of  loving  and  of  serving  God. 
Ask  me  the  nature  of  Hell  and  Heaven,  and  my  only  reply 
is  that  they  will  be  God's  retribution.     Ask  me  whether 


296  PRAYER,   HEAVEN,   HELL  [Letter  26 

all  will  be  hereafter  "  saved,"  and  I  am  silent,  or  merely 
answer  that  God  is  good,  and  that  I  believe  a  time  will 
come  when  we,  in  Him,  shall  look  back,  and  around,  and 
forward,  and  shall  see  that  His  work  has  been  "  very 
good."  Enough  for  me  to  work  and  fight  on  the  side  of 
God  and  against  Evil,  that  His  righteous  Kingdom  may 
come  and  bring  with  it  the  time  when  His  work  will  be 
seen  to  have  been  "  very  good."  As  for  other  details, 
I  know  nothing  and  delight  in  knowing  nothing.  I  do 
not  know  whether  I  shall  live  again  on  earth  or  elsewhere  ; 
whether  I  shall  be  a  being  of  three  dimensions,  or  four,  or 
of  no  dimensions  at  all  ;  whether  I  shall  be  in  space  or  out 
of  space.  It  is  far  better  to  give  up  speculations  about 
accidental  trifles  such  as  these  :  for  accidents  they  are,  as 
compared  with  the  essence  of  the  second  life,  which  con- 
sists in  Love.  Do  not  give  up  the  belief  in  that,  at  any 
cost ;  least  of  all,  at  the  cost  of  a  little  banter.  "  But 
surely  it  is  possible  that  our  very  highest  and  purest 
conceptions  of  Heaven  may  fall  short  of  the  reality." 
Granted  :  but  we  must  hold  fast  to  the  belief  that  there  is 
at  all  events  a  proportion  between  our  best  terrestrial 
aspirations  and  their  celestial  equivalents.  We  must  re- 
ject, as  from  Satan,  the  suggestion  (was  it  Spinoza's  ?) 
that  there  is  no  more  likeness  between  God  and  our  con- 
ception of  God  than  between  the  constellation  Canis  and 
a  dog.  "  God  may  not  be  Love  : "  I  do  not  believe  you  : 
but  if  He  is  not  Love,  He  will  be  some  celestial  form  of 
Love,  corresponding  to  our  Love,  only  infinitely  better. 
"  You  will  not  retain  your  individuality:"  possibly  not, 
but  certainly  we  shall  have  something  corresponding  to 
individuality,  only  better.  And  so  of  the  rest.  We  shall 
talk  humbly,  as  beseems  our  microcosmic  faculties  ;  we 
are  but  the  transitory  tenants  of  a  little  world,  which  is  to 
the  Universe  but  as  a  dew-drop  to  the  ocean  :  yet  even  a 
dew-drop  exhibits  the  same  infrangible  laws  of  light  and 


Letter  26]  PRAYER,  HEAVEN,  HELL  297 

the  same  divine  glories  that  are  manifested  in  the  rain- 
bow and  the  sunset.  So  it  is  with  a  human  soul :  there 
are  laws  in  it  of  righteousness  and  justice  and  retribution — 
laws  which  cannot  be  broken  by  the  fictions  and  illusions 
of  theology,  but  must  be  manifested  in  all  places  and  in  all 
time,  now  and  for  all  eternity,  on  earth,  in  Heaven, 
in  Hell. 


298  PAULINE  THEOLOGY 


XXVII 

My  dear , 

I  will  begin  this  letter  by  quoting  the  end  of  your 
last.  For  when  you  have  thought  over  the  matter  I  am 
sure  your  mind  will  be  so  completely  changed  that  unless 
I  send  you  an  exact  copy  of  your  own  words  you  will 
hardly  believe  you  could  ever  have  written  them.  You 
are  speaking  about  the  theology  of  St.  Paul,  and  this  is 
what  you  say:  "I  presume  that  Natural  Christianity, 
however  glad  it  may  be  to  shelter  itself  under  Pauline 
authority  in  the  low  estimate  it  sets  on  miracles,  will  find 
it  difficult  to  digest  or  swallow  Pauline  theology.  The  ab- 
struse and  artificial  doctrines  of  the  imputation  of  right- 
eousness, justification  by  faith,  and  the  atonement,  must 
surely  stand  at  the  very  antipodes  of  any  religion,  Chris- 
tian, or  other,  that  can  claim  the  name  of  natural? 

I  do  not  believe  you  can  ever  have  given  five  minutes 
of  attention  to  these  subjects  :  or  if  you  have,  you  must 
have  attended,  not  to  St.  Paul,  but  to  some  voluminous 
commentator  who  has  buried  St.  Paul's  text  under  his  own 
and  other  people's  annotations.  Cast  your  commentaries 
away.  Read  St.  Paul  for  yourself  in  the  light  of  his  own 
works  and  the  Old  Testament  (especially  the  Septuagint 
version),  and  I  will  guarantee  that  his  general  drift  shall 
come  out  clear  and  definite  enough  ;  and,  what  is  more, 
you  shall  acknowledge  that  his  religion  is  perfectly 
natural,  so  natural  that  you  meet  exemplifications  of  it 
every  day  of  your  life,  in  every  family,  in  your  own  home, 


Letter  27]  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  299 

in  your  own  heart.  It  would  be  tedious  if  I  were  to  give 
you  a  scheme  of  Pauline  theology  and  then  shew  you 
the  naturalness  of  each  part  of  the  scheme.  For  me  it 
would  be  long  and  wearisome  ;  and  you  too  would  be  in- 
clined to  stop  me  at  the  end  of  every  other  sentence  and 
say  "  I  know  that  St.  Paul  says  this  or  that,  but  how  is  it 
natural  ? "  I  will  therefore  begin  at  the  other  end,  that  is 
to  say,  with  Nature,  and  endeavour  to  shew  you  that  the 
natural  history  of  a  child,  under  favourable  circumstances, 
exhibits  the  general  features  of  St.  Paul's  theology,  the 
scheme  of  Redemption  by  which  the  Apostle  believed 
mankind  to  have  been  led  to  God. 

We  begin  then  with  a  baby — a  creature  wholly  selfish 
(in  no  bad  sense),  say,  "  self-regarding."  He  is  of  course 
"  in  the  flesh,"  or  "  walks  according  to  the  flesh  ;  "  that  is 
to  say,  he  obeys  every  impulse  of  the  moment,  and  these 
impulses  are  what  we  call  animal  impulses.  He  is  con- 
scious of  no  Law,  and  therefore  of  no  error  :  being  "  with- 
out the  Law"  he  "knows  not  sin."  As  he  grows  up, 
he  finds  himself  making  mistakes,  trespassing  against 
Nature's  rules,  playing  with  fire,  for  example:  and  Nature's 
punishment  makes  him  conscious  of  mistake,  and  de- 
sirous of  avoiding  mistake  for  fear  of  being  punished  ; 
that  is  to  say,  he  learns  to  avoid  playing  with  fire  because 
he  has  been  burned  for  it.  This  is  his  first  introduction 
to  "  the  Law  ; "  and  if  he  obeys  Nature's  Law,  through 
fear  of  Nature's  punishment,  or  hope  of  Nature's  reward, 
so  much  the  better  for  him.  Hitherto,  however,  there  is 
no  question  of  sin,  only  of  mistake.  But  now  comes  in 
the  parental  Law,  saying  "  Do  this,"  "  Do  not  do  that." 
Sometimes  he  obeys  :  sometimes,  when  "the  flesh  "  is  too 
strong,  he  disobeys.  In  the  latter  case  he  is  punished. 
This  new  kind  of  Law  is  not  a  machine-like  reward  or 
punishment  like  that  of  Nature  :  it  is  connected  with  a 
Will,  which  is  dimly  felt  by  the  child  to  be  higher  and 


Soo  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  [Letter  27 

better  than  his  own,  yet  constantly  opposed  to  his  own. 
Here  then  arises  a  conflict  between  his  strong  animal  im- 
pulses, i.e.  "  the  flesh,"  and  a  weak  nascent  impulse  of  con- 
science, i.e.  "  the  spirit  ; "  the  former  bidding  him  disobey 
the  higher  Will,  the  latter  bidding  him  obey.  Even  when 
he  disobeys,  the  spirit  has  at  least  the  power  to  make  him 
uneasy  in  his  disobedience,  and  this  uneasiness  for  the 
first  time  reveals  in  him  the  nature  of  sin.  Until  the 
Law  of  the  higher  Will  was  thus  placed  side  by  side  with 
his  own  will,  and  until  the  deflections  of  his  own  will  from 
the  higher  Will  were  thus  made  manifest  and  rebuked  by 
conscience,  the  child  had  no  notion  of  sin.  Now  he 
knows  it :  "  by  Law  has  come  the  knowledge  of  sin." 

As  long  as  he  is  thus  "  under  the  Law "  he  cannot 
possibly  be  righteous  ;  he  can  neither  be  "justified"  nor 
feel  "justified."'  When  he  is  disobedient  under  the  Law, 
he  is  conscious  of  sin  ;  but  when  he  is  obedient  under  the 
Law,  he  is  not  conscious  of  peace  or  inward  harmony  :  the 
Law  stands  up,  for  ever  antagonistic  to  his  natural  im- 
pulses, and  he  cannot  but  dislike  it,  although  he  acknow- 
ledges its  claims  upon  him  :  consequently,  even  when  he 
obeys  it,  he  obeys  it  with  a  sense  of  servitude,  obeying  in 
the  fear  of  punishment  or  in  the  hope  of  reward.  Such 
actions  as  are  performed  in  this  spirit  have  no  spontane- 
ousness  or  grace  ;  they  are  the  tasks  of  a  hireling,  mere 
piece-work — "  works,"  as  St.  Paul  more  shortly  calls  them, 
or  "the  works  of  the  Law  ;  "  and  "by  the  works  of  the 
Law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified."  During  this  period  he 
finds  no  guidance  from  the  spirit  of  loving  obedience,  but 
has  to  trust  in  formularies  and  prescriptions,  "do  this," 
"  avoid  that ; "  he  fears  lest  he  may  do  too  little,  and 
grudges  lest  he  may  do  too  much  :  he  is  in  the  condition, 
not  of  a  son,  but  of  a  servant  working  for  wages.  Just 
as  the  Stoic  said  of  the  man  who  was  not  "  wise,"  that 
whatever  he  did,  even  to  the  moving  of  his  little  finger, 


Letter  27]  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  301 

was  sure  to  be  wrong,  so  St.  Paul  taught — and  it  is  the 
truth — -that  our  every  action,  as  long  as  we  are  "  under  the 
Law,"  is  void  of  harmony,  beauty,  freedom,  and  spiritual 
life  :  it  is  but  obedience  to  a  dead  rule  ;  such  actions  are 
of  the  nature  of  sin  and  tend  to  spiritual  destruction  : 
"  the  wages  of  sin  are  death." 

During  this  state  the  raw,  half-developed,  ungraceful, 
unharmonized,  and  ever-erring  boy  of  fifteen  appears  to 
have  retrograded  from  the  perfectly  graceful  and  uncon- 
scious selfishness  of  the  innocent  child  of  four.  But  it 
is  not  so.  The  knowledge  of  sin  is  the  stepping-stone  to 
a  higher  righteousness  than  could  have  been  obtained  by 
perpetuating  the  innocence  of  childhood.  Even  during 
the  period  of  the  "  bondage  to  the  Law "  there  were 
occasional  intervals  of  freedom,  prophetic  of  a  higher 
state.  Duty,  sometimes,  shining  out  before  the  child  as 
something  purer  and  nobler  than  a  mere  inevitable  debt, 
appeared  "  sweet  and  honourable  ; "  x  and  whenever  Duty 
thus  revealed  herself,  the  child,  in  freely  and  ungrudgingly 
obeying  her,  was  obeying  no  unworthy  emblem  of  the 
Father  in  heaven  ;  and  by  such  obedience  his  character 
was  strengthened  and  matured.  But  now  the  time 
has  come  for  another  step  upwards.  The  boy  dis- 
obeys and  is  forgiven.  At  first,  forgiveness  makes  no  im- 
pression on  him.  He  does  not  understand  it,  does  not 
believe  in  it,  because  he  does  not  quite  believe  in  the 
author  of  it ;  he  regards  his  father  as  one  too  far  above 
him  to  be  able  to  sympathize  entirely  with  his  boyish  de- 
sires and  impatience  of  restraint,  too  much  like  a  Law  to 
be  capable  of  feeling  real  pain  at  his  faults.  As  long  as 
he  is  in  this  condition,  forgiveness  comes  to  him  as  the 
mere  remission  of  penalty;  he  is  glad  to  "get  off,"  but 
his  heart  is  not  yet  touched,  and  there  is  therefore  no  real 
remission   of    sin,   partly  because  he  has   no   sufficient 

1  "  Dulce  et  decorum  est  fro  patria  mori." 


302  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  [Letter  27 

sense  of  sin,  partly  because  he  has  no  faith  in  the 
forgiver. 

But  at  last  comes  the  revelation  of  the  meaning  of  for- 
giveness. Some  outward  sign,  a  mother's  tear,  the  mere 
expression  of  the  father's  face — it  may  be  this,  or  it  may 
be  something  of  much  longer  duration  and  far  more  com- 
plex— but  something  at  last  brings  home  to  him  the  fact 
that  his  sin  weighs  like  a  crushing  burden  upon  the  heart 
of  some  one  else,  who,  in  spite  of  his  sin,  still  loves  him 
and  still  trusts  in  him.  His  parents,  he  finds — or  it  may 
be  some  brother,  sister,  or  friend — are  bearing  his  sin  and 
carrying  his  iniquity  as  if  it  were  their  own  :  the  shame 
and  the  pain  of  it,  which  he  feels  as  a  mere  unpleasant 
uneasiness,  are  causing  to  others  an  acute  sorrow  of  which 
he  had  not  dreamed  before.  Instead  of  being  savagely 
angry  with  him,  furious  at  the  mischief  he  has  done, 
and  at  the  disgrace  which  he  has  brought  upon  them,  in- 
stead of  visiting  upon  him  all  the  consequences  of  his 
fault,  his  parents  are  themselves  suffering  some  part  of  it, 
themselves  crushed  down  by  it :  if  they  punish  him,  they 
are  not  punishing  him  vindictively  but  for  his  good — it  is 
hard  indeed  to  believe  this,  but  he  believes  it  at  last — the 
chastisement  of  his  peace  falls  upon  them  as  well  as  upon 
him;  their  heart  is  broken  and  contrite  for  his  sake  ;  their 
souls  are  a  sacrifice  for  his  ;  they  feel  his  sin  as  if  it  were 
their  own  ;  they  have  appropriated  his  sin  ;  have  been 
identified  with  his  sin  ;  they  are  "  made  sin"  for  him. 

Now  if  the  youth  has  not  in  him  the  germ  of  faith  or 
trust  whereby  he  can  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  these  (to 
him)  mysterious  and  at  first  inexplicable  feelings,  why  then 
the  parental  forgiveness  is  worse  than  nothing  to  him. 
If  he  resists  its  influence  and  calls  it  cant  or  humbug,  it 
hardens  instead  of  softening  the  boy's  heart ;  and  then 
the  little  spiritual  sensitiveness  that  he  once  had,  dies 
rapidly  away.    In  this  case  "  from  him  that  hath  not  there 


Letter  27J  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  303 

hath  been  taken  away  even  that  which  he  seemed  to 
have,"  and  the  good-tidings  or  Gospel  of  forgiveness  has 
proved,  in  this  case,  "  a  savour  of  death  unto  death." 
But  if  he  has  the  germ  of  faith  to  begin  with,  then  the 
Gospel  works  its  natural  result :  "  to  him  that  hath  there 
is  added,  and  he  hath  more  abundantly."  "  Proceeding 
from  faith  "  the  message  of  forgiveness  tends  "  to  the  in- 
crease of  faith."1  Insensibly  he  finds  himself  raised 
up  from  his  former  position  to  the  level  of  those  who 
have  forgiven  him  ;  he  is  identified  with  his  forgivers  in 
spirit,  so  that  he  now  sees  things  as  they  see  them,  and 
for  the  first  time  discerns  the  hatefulness  of  sin,  and 
hates  it  as  they  hate  it,  and  longs  to  shake  it  off  as  a 
burden  alien  to  his  nature.  At  the  same  time,  finding 
himself  trusted  by  those  in  whose  truth  as  well  as  good- 
ness he  himself  places  trust,  he  learns  a  new  self-respect 
even  in  the  moment  when  he  awakens  to  his  past  degrada- 
tion ;  he  has  (he  feels  it  to  be  true)  something  within  him 
that  may  be  trusted,  some  possibility  of  better  things  which 
at  once  springs  up  into  the  reality  of  fulfilment  under  the 
warm  breath  of  affectionate  and  trustful  forgiveness.  In 
other  words,  righteousness  is  "  imputed  to  him,"  and  he 
becomes  righteous.  The  gulf  between  the  parental  will 
and  himself  is  now  bridged  over  by  a  kind  of  atonement. 
The  relations  which  he  imagined  and  created  for  himself 
before  between  his  parents  and  himself,  were  angry  justice 
on  the  one  side,  sullen  obedience  or  open  disobedience  on 
the  other  side  :  all  this  is  now  exchanged  for  an  entirely 
different  relationship,  love  on  both  sides,  kind  control 
from  the  one,  willing,  zealous  obedience  from  the  other, 
resulting  in  perfect  peace  and  in  an  atmosphere  of  mutual 
goodwill,  happiness,  joy,  favour.  For  this  kind  of  "  favour  " 
we  have  no  exact  word  in  English,  but  in  the  Greek  Testa- 
ment  it   is   called  by  a  word  which  we  must  translate 

1  Rom.  i.  17. 


3o4  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  {Letter  27 

"  grace  :  "  the  youth  then  is  "  no  more  under  the  law  but 
under  grace."  No  longer  now  is  he  a  servant,  performing 
"  works  ;  "  a  community  of  feeling  unites  him  with  those 
above  him,  whom  he  had  once  regarded  as  hostile  and 
despotic.  No  longer  the  slave  of  rules  and  orders,  no 
longer  fearing  punishment  nor  drudging  for  reward,  he  is 
quickened  by  a  spirit  within  him  which  guides  him  natur- 
ally to  do,  and  to  anticipate,  not  only  the  bidding,  but 
even  the  unexpressed  wishes,  of  that  higher  Will.  His 
whole  life  is  now  a  service  devoted  to  this  new  Master  ; 
yet  he  is  not  a  servant,  but  free,  because  he  serves  willingly 
in  a  service  which  is  the  noblest  freedom.  The  simplest 
actions  are  performed  in  a  fresh  spirit ;  all  things  have  be- 
come new  ;  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  ended,  the  life  of  the 
spirit  has  begun.  Looking  back  upon  his  former  self  he 
finds  that  it  is  dead  ;  he  has  died  unto  sin  and  risen  from 
the  dead  that  he  may  live  again  to  righteousness. 

Is  it  necessary  for  me  to  trace  the  parallelism  between 
these  phenomena  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the 
Pauline  scheme  of  the  redemption  of  man  ?  You  must 
have  recognized  in  each  step  of  the  development  sketched 
above  some  feature  of  the  Pauline  doctrine.  My  fear  is, 
not  so  much  that  you  may  fail  to  acknowledge  this,  as 
that  you  may  doubt  whether  the  individual  always  passes 
through  these  phases.  But  I  am  confident  that  it  must  be 
so  for  all  who  are  to  be  saved  :  there  is  no  royal  road  of 
privilege  or  miracle  by  which  a  man  can  pass  from  the  inno- 
cent selfishness  of  childhood  to  the  practised  righteousness 
of  manhood,  without  passing  through  the  narrow  denies  of 
the  flesh  and  fighting  his  battle  with  sin  ;  nor  do  I  believe 
that  any  man  has  ever  been  "  saved,''  that  is  to  say,  has 
passed  through  that  struggle  so  far  safely  as  to  attain 
some  thoughtfulness  for  others,  some  love  of  righteousness 
for  its  own  sake,  unless  he  has  received  through  the  Word 
of  God  some  such  revelation  as  1  have  described. 


Letter  27]  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  305 

The  typical  revelation  of  this  kind,  which  sums  up  all 
others,  is  the  revelation  made  by  the  atonement  of 
Jesus  Christ:  but  that  revelation  has  been  a  silence  for 
the  myriads  who  have  died  in  ignorance  of  the  very  name 
of  Jesus  :  is  there  no  other  way  then  in  which  the  Word 
of  God  has  taught  them,  redeemed  them,  forgiven  them, 
made  atonement  for  them  ?  Yes,  assuredly  the  Word  of 
God  has  been  mediating  between  God  and  men  since  men 
first  existed — long  before  the  time  when  the  children  of 
Israel  "  drank  of  that  Rock  which  followed  them,  and  that 
Rock  was  Christ " — and  the  chief  vehicle  of  His  mediation 
has  been  the  influence  of  the  righteous  on  the  unrighteous, 
especially  of  parents  on  children.  In  this  influence,  the 
bright  and  central  point  has  been  the  power  which  each 
man  has,  in  some  poor  degree,  of  forgiving,  and  making 
atonement  for,  the  sins  of  others — a  power  so  weak  and 
small,  compared  with  the  same  power  in  Christ,  that  it 
may  be  easily  ignored  by  superficial  observers  ;  and  some 
may  think  to  do  God  honour  by  ignoring  it.  But  in  reality 
whoso  ignores  it  is  ignoring  the  best  gift  of  God  to  man. 
This  undeveloped  power  of  forgiving  has  been  that  un- 
effaced  likeness  of  God  in  which  He  created  us  ;  and 
every  act  of  forgiveness,  from  Adam  down  to  John  the 
Baptist,  has  been  inspired  by  the  Word  of  God  to  be  a  type 
and  prophecy  of  that  great  and  unique  act  which  sums 
up  and  explains  all  forgiveness,  the  Atonement  made  by 
the  Word's  own  sacrifice.  I  said  above  that  the  mother's 
tear  might  for  the  first  time  reveal  to  a  child  the  meaning 
and  power  of  forgiveness.  What  the  tear  of  a  mother 
may  be  to  her  child,  that  the  Cross  of  Christ  has  been 
to  mankind  ;  the  expression  as  it  were,  of  the  Father's 
pitifulness  for  His  sinful  children,  revealing  to  them  the 
meaning,  and  the  pain,  of  forgiveness. 

St.  Paul  (you  will  find)  in  all  his  epistles  recognizes  the 
analogy  between  the  human  race  and  the  individual ;  and 

X 


306  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  [Letter  27 

all  that  he  teaches  about  mankind  corresponds  to  the  de- 
velopment I  have  tried  to  sketch  above.  You  will  be  told 
indeed  that  the  attempt  to  trace  such  a  parallelism  as  I 
have  traced  above,  is  an  attempt  to  "  read  modern  thoughts 
into  an  ancient  author."  But  do  not  be  in  haste  to  call  St. 
Paul  an  "  ancient  author,"  not  at  least  in  any  disparaging 
sense,  as  if  we  had  outgrown  the  antiquated  limits  of  his 
thoughts.  Being  a  man  of  realities  St.  Paul  dived  deep 
down  below  the  surface  of  language,  cant,  and  formularies  ; 
he  reached  the  very  source  and  centre  of  the  human 
heart  where  righteousness  is  made.  He  realized  the 
making  of  righteousness  as  a  visible  process.  Others, 
who  have  not  realized  it,  think  his  writings  misguided, 
antique,  occasionally  untrue.  But  do  not  you  fail  to  dis- 
tinguish between  St.  Paul's  style  and  St.  Paul's  thought. 
He  wrote  in  a  hurry  ;  he  did  not  think  in  a  hurry.  The 
general  scheme  of  his  theology  needs  no  excuse,  nor 
allowance,  nor  patronage.  His  illustrations  of  it,  argu- 
ments in  defence  of  it,  even  his  expressions  of  it,  are, 
from  our  point  of  view,  often  inadequate  ;  but  his  spiritual 
truths  are  the  deepest  truths  of  human  nature,  as  it  may  be 
seen  ascending  through  illusion  and  frailty  to  divine 
knowledge  and  divine  righteousness.  St.  Paul  has  been 
wonderfully  obscured  by  formularizing  commentators. 
The  best  commentary  on  him  that  I  know  is  an  ordinary 
home  ;  but  for  a  young  man,  away  from  home,  and  in 
danger  of  forgetting  his  childhood,  the  next  best  commen- 
tary is  Shakespeare,  and  the  next  to  that  is  Wordsworth, 
or,  from  a  different  point  of  view,  the  In  Memoriam. 

Tell  me  now  ;  was  I  wrong  in  saying  that  the  Pauline 
scheme  of  salvation  is  eminently  natural?  I  do  not  of 
course  mean  materialistic,  but  natural  in  the  sense  of 
orderly.  Where,  in  the  whole  of  this  doctrine,  is  there  any 
necessity  for  believing  that  the  Son  of  God — "born  of  a 
woman"    and  manifested   "in  the  flesh  that  he  might 


Letter  27]  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  307 

destroy  the  works  of  the  devil  "—did  or    said  anything 
that   involves  a  suspension   of  the   laws    of  nature?     I 
have  already  shewn  that  the  "  miracles "  wrought  by  St. 
Paul  himself  were  in    all    probability   works  of  healing, 
and  natural  ;    and    the   manifestations   in   which    Christ 
"  appeared"  to  him  and  to  the  other  disciples  have  been 
shewn  to  be,  in  all  probability,  visions  in  accordance  with 
the   laws    of  nature,   though    representing   an   objective 
reality.     There  is  no  reference  in  St.  Paul's  works  to  the 
Miraculous  Conception,  nor  to  any  of  those  miracles  of 
Jesus  which,  if  historical,  must  be  admitted  to  be  real 
miracles.     On  the  other  hand  there  runs  through  all  his 
epistles  an  acknowledgment  of  a  continuous  spiritual  Law, 
predetermined  and  inviolable.     What  else  does  St.  Paul 
mean  by  the  continual  assertion  that  the  calling  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  the  "election"  of  all  men,  are  "predestined?" 
Perhaps  you  have  never  yet  appreciated  the  circumstances 
which  led  the  Apostle  to  lay  so  much  stress  on  the  "  pre- 
destination "  apparent  in  history.     I  do  not  think  you  can 
ever  understand  St.  Paul's   teaching  on  this  subject,  as 
long  as  you  fasten  your  attention  on  two  or  three  isolated 
texts  which  appear  to  set  it  forth.     You  must  look  at  it  as 
a  whole,  and  have  regard  to  the  motive  of  the  author  ; 
and  then  you  will  find  that  it  is  to  be  understood  negatively 
rather  than  positively.     When  St.  Paul  says  "  God  pre- 
destined this,  or  that,"  he  means,  "  God  did  not  make  a 
mistake,  or  change  his  mind,  about  this  or  that :  the  gifts 
a?id  calli7tg  of  God  are  without  repenta?ice" 

In  setting  forth  Predestination,  St.  Paul  is  always 
mentally  protesting  against  two  tendencies  already  per- 
ceptible to  him  in  the  Church,  the  tendency  of  the 
Jews  to  regard  the  admission  of  the  Gentiles  into  the 
Church  as  an  after-thought,  perhaps  as  a  mistake ; 
and  the  tendency  of  the  Gentiles  to  regard  the  Law  of 

x  2 


308  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  {Letter  27 

Moses   as   a  complete  and  useless  failure.     It  was  one 
of   St.    Paul's    main  objects  to  shew  that  the  history  of 
Israel  and  of  the  Gentile  world  revealed  a  thread  of  im- 
mutable purpose  of  salvation  running  through  the  whole 
■ — a  purpose  to  subordinate  evil  to  good,  the  flesh  to  the 
spirit,  the  Law  to  the  Gospel ;  so  that  there  has  been  no 
mistake,  no  dislocation  of  the  divine  scheme,  nor  change 
of  the  divine  will.     Although  the  Apostle  always  refers 
things  to  a  Will  and  not  a  Law  as  their  ultimate  origin, 
yet  the  whole  tenour  of  his  argument  exhibits  that  Will  as 
being  not  liable  to  caprice  or  accidental  shifting,  but  a 
Will  of  predestination,  a  Law,  so  to  speak,  tinged  with 
emotion.    No  doubt  St.  Paul,  sometimes,  in  the  attempt  to 
shew  the  immutability  of  the  divine  purposes,  puts  forward 
somewhat  baldly  and  repellently  the  insoluble  problem  of 
the  origin  of  evil,  as  if  God  Himself  predestined  not  only 
rejection  but  also  the  sin  that  was  the  cause  of  rejection. 
But  it  was  not  his  intention  to  exhibit  God  as  originating 
evil  ;    and  the  cause  that  leads  him  so  to  do,  or  so  to 
appear  to   do,   is    his   intense    desire  to    exhibit   God's 
mysterious  plan  of  not  at  once  annihilating  evil  but  of 
utilizing   it   and    subordinating  it    to   good.      The    fore- 
ordained purpose  of  God   before  the  foundation  of  the 
world  is  the  redemption  of  mankind  ;  and  in  order  to  help 
men  to  attain  to  this  height,  the  flesh,  the  law,  death,  yes, 
even  sin   itself,  are  forced  to  serve  as  stepping-stones. 
Hence  even  in  rejection,  as  well  as  in  election,  the  Apostle 
cannot  fail  to  discern  the  hand  of  God.     There  is  a  Law 
in  all  God's  doing,  and  especially  in  His  election.     God 
hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  this  world  to  confound  the 
strong  and  the  foolish  things  of  this  world  to  confound  the 
wise  ;  the  first-born  is  rejected,  the  younger  son  is  chosen. 
This  is  not  accident ;  it  is  a  type  of  the  general  law  ex- 
emplified in  the  vision  of  Elijah.     Not  by  the  whirlwind 


Letter  27]  PAULINE  THEOLOGY 


309 


or  the  fire  or  the  earthquake  but  by  the  quiet  and  neglected 
processes  of  nature  does  God  perform  His  mightiest  works. 
This  deep  truth  pervades  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul.  Pierce 
through  the  antique  and  Oriental  integument  of  his  ex- 
pression, and  you  will  find  no  other  Christian  writer  who 
so  clearly  brings  out  that  the  Christian  religion  is  not 
according  to  caprice  but  according  to  Law. 


3io  OBJECTIONS 


XXVIII 

My  dear , 

You  tell  me  that  you  have  been  shewing  my  letters 
to  some  of  your  young  friends,  and  that  they  have  expressed 
various  objections  to  non-miraculous  Christianity.  ■  Some 
say  that  I  am  an  "optimist;"  otheis  that  it  is  a  com- 
promise between  faith  and  reason,  and  that  compromises 
are  always  to  be  rejected  ;  one  says  that  I  am  for  in- 
troducing "  a  new  religion  ;  "  others  that  a  Gospel  of 
illusion  must,  by  its  own  shewing,  be  itself  illusive ; 
others,  that  "  these  new  notions  are  so  vague  that  they 
can  never  be  put  into  a  definite  shape,  and  they  are 
so  mixed  up  with  theories  and  fancies  and  suppositions 
of  error  in  every  period  of  the  Church,  that  they  can 
never  commend  themselves  to  the  masses." 

Do  you  know  what  "cant"  means,  and  why  it  was  so 
called  ?  "  Cant "  is  the  sort  of  language  used  (not  always 
deceitfully)  when  a  man  "  chants,"  or  utters  in  a  kind  of 
sing-song,  words  that  he  has  not  felt  himself,  or,  if  he  has 
ever  felt,  has  ceased  to  feel,  through  the  too  frequent  use 
of  them.  Hence  he  cannot  speak  them,  but  "  sing-songs  " 
them,  "  chants  "  or  "cants"  them.  Now  I  take  leave  to 
think  that  two  or  three  of  the  objections  above-mentioned 
come  under  this  head  of  "  cant."  I  mean  that  your  young 
objectors,  not  knowing  exactly  at  the  moment  what  to  say 
about  opinions  that  are  new  and  require  some  thought 
to  understand  or  criticise,  and  being  desirous  of  saying 
something  at  the  moment,  and  something,  if  possible,  that 


Letter  i%\  OBJECTIONS  311 

shall  be  brief  and  smart,  say  what  they  have  heard  other 
people  say  about  other  sets  of  opinions  which  have  some 
affinity  of  sound  with  mine.  This  is  a  very  common  habit 
with  inferior  professional  reviewers,  who  are  bound  to  say 
something  readable  and  epigrammatic  for  limited  remune- 
ration and  consequently  in  limited  time  :  but  your  friends 
have  not  come  to  that  yet,  and  are  therefore  not  to  be  so 
easily  excused. 

"  Optimist !  "  How  can  a  man  who  believes  in  a  real 
Satan  be  an  optimist  ?  I  thought  an  optimist  was  one  who 
believed  the  world  to  be  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 
This  I  do  not,  and  cannot,  believe.  I  trust  indeed  that  a 
time  may  come  when  we  may  be  optimists  after  a  fashion  ; 
when  we  shall  look  back,  in  God,  upon  the  universal  sum  of 
things  and  find  that  it  has  been  the  best  possible  under 
the  circumstances,  and  that  evil  has  been  marvellously 
subordinated  to  good :  but  I  never  can  believe  that 
a  Universe  in  which  God  defeats  Satan  is  better  than  a 
Universe  in  which  God  reigns  unresisted  ;  and  therefore, 
as  to  this  "  best  of  all  possible  worlds,"  I  rest  always 
humbly  silent.  Some  people  may  believe,  if  they  can, 
that  evil  is  another  form  of  good  ;  that  the  world  is  like 
one  of  those  spectroscopes — I  think  they  call  them — where 
several  different  pictures  on  a  round  card,  each  meaning- 
less by  itself,  are  converted  into  one  significant  picture  by 
whirling  the  card  round  too  quickly  for  the  eye  to  follow. 
In  the  same  way  they  seem  to  suppose  they  can  take  little 
pictures  of  oppression,  adultery,  murder,  and  the  other 
myriad  shapes  of  sin,  spin  them  round  fast  enough  along 
with  other  little  pictures  of  temperance,  purity,  peace,  and 
all  the  virtues  ;  and  the  whole  becomes  a  panorama  of 
moral  perfection  !     Argue  thus  who  will ;  I  cannot. 

If  I  am  not  an  optimist  in  my  view  of  this  world,  you 
will  surely  not  accuse  me  of  optimism  in  my  views  of  the 
next.     Do  my  notions  of  heaven  and  hell  encourage  any 


312  OBJECTIONS  [Letter  28 

one  to  be  selfish  and  luxurious  or  idle  now,  in  the  hope 
that  he  will  be  let  off  easily  hereafter  ?  Have  I  not  said 
that  there  will  be  no  "letting  off"?  That  God  will  do 
the  best  thing  for  Nero — is  that  do  you  think  likely  to 
make  Nero  altogether  an  optimist  in  the  life  to  come  ?  I 
think  He  will  do  the  best  thing  for  me  ;  but  I  sometimes 
shiver  when  I  say  it ;  awe  possesses  me,  awe  mingled 
with  trust,  but  certainly  not  without  a  touch  of  fear. 
Assuredly  the  certainty  of  retribution  in  heaven  makes 
me  no  optimist  for  myself  or  others,  as  to  the  life 
after  death.  In  one  sense  only  am  I  an  optimist,  that 
I  believe  that  the  best  will  ultimately  prevail,  and  that 
faith,  hope,  and  love,  will  prove  the  dominant  powers  in 
the  Universe.  This  I  believe,  and  to  this  belief  I  cling 
as  a  most  precious  hope,  to  be  cherished  by  action  as 
well  as  by  meditation  ;  but  this  is  not,  I  think,  what  is 
ordinarily  meant  by  optimism  ;  and  certainly  it  does  not 
encourage  the  spirit  of  laissez  faire  which  optimism  is 
supposed  to  breed. 

Next  as  to  "compromise."  The  ordinary  cant  about 
"  compromise  "  is  sometimes  the  lazy  expedient  of  those 
who  wish  to  avoid  the  trouble  of  coming  to  a  decision,  and 
to  shelter  their  indolence  under  a  noble  censoriousness 
What  they  mean  by  "compromise"  is  any  theory  that 
attributes  results  to  more  than  one  cause.  It  is  generally 
very  easy  to  elaborate  some  extreme  theory  which  shall 
explain  almost  everything  by  some  single  cause,  by  Faith, 
for  example,  on  the  one  side,  or  by  Reason  on  the  other  ; 
and  it  is  equally  easy  for  the  advocates  on  either  side  to 
demolish  the  theory  of  their  adversaries  ;  but  it  is  far 
from  easy  afterwards  to  shew  how,  and  to  what  extent, 
both  causes  are  accountable  for  the  result  which  has  been 
fictitiously  attributed  to  a  single  cause.  Now  the  two 
extreme  parties,  in  their  contests,  afford  us  fine  cut-and- 
thrust  exhibitions  ;  the  via  media  exhibits  an  organized 


Letter  28]  OBJECTIONS  313 

campaign.  The  theatrical  multitude,  which  does  not  care 
in  the  least  about  truth,  but  delights  in  intellectual 
slashers,  soon  finds  it  dull  work,  after  clapping  an  exciting 
melee,  to  have  to  sit  still  and  listen  to  a  dispassionate 
and  impartial  discussion  ;  so  they  cry  "  compromise  "  and 
hiss.  But  the  term  is  a  misnomer.  "  Compromise,"  or 
"  mutual  promise,"  cannot  describe  a  legitimate  conclusion 
that  hits  the  mark  missed  by  two  previously  divergent 
shots.  It  is  as  if  A  were  to  hit  the  top  of  the  target,  and 
B  the  bottom,  and  then  both  A  and  B  were  to  fall  foul  of 
C,  and  accuse  him  of  "  compromising,"  because  he  pierces 
the  bull's  eye  half  way  between  the  two.  '*  Compromise  " 
often  implies  a  failure  of  exact  justice  ;  as  when  Smith 
thinks  Jones  owes  him  50/.,  and  Jones  thinks  he  owes  Smith 
only  40/. ;  and  they  "  split  the  difference  "  and  make  it 
45/.  ;  both  of  them  thinking  that  the  arrangement  is 
unjust,  but  both  preferring  the  injustice  to  the  expensive 
formalities  of  legal  justice.  This  is  "  compromise,"  and 
illogical ;  but  there  is  none  of  this  illogicality  in  a  fair 
impartial  discussion  avoiding  previous  bias. 

So  in  the  present  instance.  Some  have  been  biassed  in 
favour  of  Faith,  others  in  favour  of  Reason ;  some  have 
accepted  as  historical  all  the  miracles  and  mighty  works 
in  the  Old  and  New  Testament  indiscriminately,  others 
have  rejected  all  indiscriminately  ;  some  have  declared 
that  every  word  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament  (I  don't 
quite  know  how  they  have  got  rid  of  the  difficulty  of 
various  readings)  is  exactly  inspired  and  every  detail 
historically  true  ;  others,  that  there  are  so  many  errors 
and  illusions  that  the  books  may  be  put  aside  as  no 
better  than  myths  :  some  have  said  that,  since  we  cannot 
worship  an  unknown  Being,  we  must  worship  the  human 
race  ;  others  that,  since  we  cannot  worship  our  very 
degraded  selves,  we  must  worship  some  being  altogether 
different  from  ourselves  :  some  have  said  that  Christ  is 


314  OBJECTIONS  [Letter  28 

God,  and  have  ignored  His  humanity  ;  others  have  said 
that  He  was  a  "  mere  man,"  and  therefore  not  divine. 
Now  in  all  these  cases  the  truth  lies  between  the  two 
extremes.  Man  derives  religious  truth  from  Faith,  but 
Faith  assisted  by  Reason ;  Christ  did  not  perform 
miracles,  but  He  did  perform  mighty  works  ;  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  like  all  other  vehicles  of  revelation, 
contain  illusion,  but  illusion  preserving  and  protecting 
truth  ;  Ave  must  not  worship  ourselves,  and  yet  we  cannot 
worship  one  who  is  altogether  different  from  ourselves  ; 
Christ  is  a  man,  and  yet  Christ  is  God.  But  to  all  these 
conclusions  we  are  not  led  by  "  mutual  promise,"  give 
and  take  of  any  kind,  but  by  full  and  unbiassed  consider- 
ation of  all  sides  of  the  subject,  knowing  that  (for  the 
present  at  all  events)  we  shall  displease  all,  both  the 
orthodox  and  heterodox  alike. 

So  far  from  suggesting  any  compromise  between  Faith 
and  Reason,  I  have  merely  pointed  out  that  the  provinces 
of  the  two  are,  to  a  very  large  extent,  distinct,  so  that 
many  of  their  operations  can  be  performed  altogether 
independently.  I  have  never  said,  "  Do  not  follow  out 
the  conclusions  of  your  Reason  in  this  or  that  instance 
because  you  would  be  led  to  inconvenient  results,"  but, 
"  Follow  out  the  conclusions  of  your  Reason  in  every 
instance  and  presently  acknowledge  that  you  are  led,  in 
some  cases,  to  results  so  absurd  and  unpractical  that  you 
must  infer  Reason  to  be  out  of  its  province  in  these  cases. 
Reason  your  utmost  for  example  about  a  First  Cause  and 
Predestination  and  the  Origin  of  Evil  and  the  like  ;  but 
then,  when  you  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  logically 
speaking,  it  is  equally  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  world 
had  no  cause,  and  that  the  First  Cause  had  no  cause,  give 
the  subject  up  as  being  beyond  the  syllogistic  powers." 
Surely  there  is  no  unworthy  compromise  here,  nothing 
but  common  sense  !  Wherever  historical  facts  are  affirmed 


Letter  2^,]  OBJECTIONS  315 

in  religion,  I  have  said  that  the  accounts  of  those  facts  are 
to  be  judged  upon  evidence  and  by  Reason  alone  ;  here 
Faith  and  Hope  have  no  place;  history  in  the  New 
Testament  is  to  be  judged  like  history  in  Thucydides. 

In  reality  it  is  not  I  with  my  via  media  that  am  guilty 
of  compromise ;  it  is  the  Hyper-orthodox  (if  I  may  use  a 
term  that  is  nominally  meaningless  but  really  quite  intel- 
ligible) and  the  Agnostic.  For  the  Hyper-orthodox  say 
"Accept  the  Scriptures  in  a  lump."  Why?  "Because  it 
would  be  so  very  inconvenient  not  to  have  an  infallible 
guide."  Of  course  they  do  not  say  so  in  these  precise 
words  :  but  this  is  what  their  replies  ultimately  amount 
to.  Again  tne  Agnostics  say,  "  Reject  the  Scriptures 
in  toto."  Why  ?  "  Because  it  would  be  so  very  incon- 
venient to  weigh  evidence  and  discriminate  the  true  from 
the  false."  It  is  these,  not  I,  who  are  calling  in  emotion 
to  do  the  work  of  Reason,  and  who  (partly,  I  think,  to 
avoid  facing  unpalatable  facts)  force  Reason  to  make  a 
compromise  with  prejudice.  "  Convenience,"  as  I  have 
pointed  out  in  a  previous  letter,  may  be  a  legitimate  basis 
for  accepting  as  a  Law  of  Nature  the  tried  and  tested 
suggestions  of  the  Imagination  ;  but  it  is  not  a  legitimate 
basis  on  which  to  construct  a  belief  in  the  genuineness  of 
the  Book  of  Daniel  or  the  Second  Epistle  of  St.  Peter. 

Let  me  mention  one  point  where,  in  appearance,  but 
not  in  reality,  my  theory  is  liable  to  the  charge  of  com- 
promise :  I  mean  the  discussion  of  the  Miraculous  Concep- 
tion and  the  Supernatural  Incarnation.  In  discussing  the 
Miraculous  Conception  I  have  advised  you  to  trust  to  your 
Reason  alone,  because  here  you  have  to  deal  with  a  state- 
ment of  physical  facts,  true  or  untrue,  and  to  be  proved 
or  disproved  by  evidence  ;  but  as  regards  the  Super- 
natural Incarnation  and  the  statement  that  the  Word 
of  God  became  a  human  spirit,  I  have  pointed  out  that 
here  we  have  a  statement  that   cannot  be  proved  or 


316  OBJECTIONS  [Letter  28 

disproved  by  simple  historical  evidence,  nor  even  by- 
miracle,  because  even  if  an  archangel  descended  from 
heaven  to  trumpet  forth  a  "Yes"  or  "No"  to  the 
world,  the  message  might  be  from  the  Devil.  If  then 
we  are  to  believe  in  the  Incarnation  we  must  have  a 
twofold  testimony.  First  must  come  the  historical  evi- 
dence indicating  the  words,  and  deeds,  and  character, 
and  results,  of  the  life  of  Christ,  the  truth  of  which 
must  be  judged  by  the  Reason  ;  and  then  there  must 
come  the  witness  of  the  conscience  exclaiming  "  This 
life  is  divine  ;  this  man  is  one  with  God."  Conse- 
quently it  is  quite  possible  to  accept  the  Supernatural 
Incarnation  while  denying  the  Miraculous  Conception  ; 
and  this  I  have  felt  obliged  to  do.  But  where  is  the 
compromise  or  inconsistency?  I  am  compelled  by  evi- 
dence and  Reason  to  deny  the  truth  of  the  Miraculous 
Conception,  on  account  of  the  very  small  amount  of 
evidence  for  it  and  the  very  large  amount  of  evidence 
against  it ;  I  am  equally  compelled  by  evidence  and 
Faith  to  accept  the  Supernatural  Incarnation,  because 
the  evidence  convinces  me  that  a  certain  life  has  been 
lived  on  earth,  and  my  conscience  convinces  me  that  this 
life  could  not  have  been  lived  by  any  being  who  was  not 
one  with  God. 

Are  my  accusers  equally  free  from  confusion  ?  I  think 
not.  Ask  the  Hyper-orthodox  why  they  believe  in  the 
Miraculous  Conception  in  spite  of  the  silence  of  all  the 
earliest  documents ;  they  will  reply,  (if  you  penetrate 
below  their  first  superficial  answers,  such  as,  "  Because 
it  is  in  the  Bible,"  "  Because  I  have  believed  it  from 
my  youth  upward,"  and  the  like),  "Jesus  must  have 
been  born  miraculously,  because  He  was  the  Son  of  God" 
— a  confusion  of  things  historical  and  spiritual,  and  a 
manifest  expulsion  of  Reason  from  her  rightful  province. 
Again,  ask  the  Agnostic  why  he  does  not  believe  that 


Letter  2%\  OBJECTIONS  317 

Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God  ;  he  will  reply  that  he  sees  no 
proof  of  the  fact,  nor  even  of  the  existence  of  a  God  ; 
and  if  you  press  him  to  define  what  he  means  by  "  proof  " 
of  the  existence  of  a  God,  you  will  find  that  he  wholly 
ignores  the  influence  of  Imagination  as  a  means  of  arriv- 
ing at  truth,  and  that  he  requires  some  kind  of  evidence 
that  shall  entirely  dispense  with  Faith.  Thus  the  Hyper- 
orthodox  and  the  Agnostic  are  equally  guilty,  the  one  of 
dispossessing  Reason,  the  other  of  dispossessing  Faith, 
from  their  rightful  provinces  ;  and  they  accuse  me  of 
"  compromising,"  not  because  I  really  compromise,  but 
because  I  pursue  truth  at  the  cost  of  some  trouble,  while 
they — partly  perhaps  to  avoid  the  pain  of  thinking,  and 
the  prospect  of  colliding  with  hard  unpleasing  truths — 
pursue  severally  that  form  of  untruth  to  which  they  are 
inclined  by  prejudice. 

And  now  for  the  next  objection,  that  "  this  is  a  new 
religion."  How  can  men  give  the  name  of  a  new  religion 
to  that  which  proclaims  as  the  one  means  of  salvation  the 
Eternal  Word  of  God  believed  in  of  old  by  Jews  as  well 
as  by  Christians  ?  Or  is  it  a  mark  of  novelty  to  accept 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  that  Word  incarnate  ?  The  one 
thing  new  about  the  opinions  put  forward  in  my  letters  is 
this — that  it  is  not  a  necessary  condition  for  believing 
in  Christ,  that  men  should  accept  a  number  of  historical 
statements  which  are,  and  have  been,  doubted  by  many 
honest  seekers  after  truth.  I  believe  I  might  add,  without 
any  exaggeration,  that  the  statements  which  I  impugn  are 
rejected  by  so  large  a  number  of  those  who  are  most  com- 
petent to  judge,  that,  in  spite  of  many  inducements — some 
richly  substantial,  some  nobly  spiritual — many  of  the  ablest 
and  best  educated  young  men  of  England  cannot  in  these 
days  be  persuaded  to  become  ministers  of  the  religion  which 
appears  to  insist  on  them.  Beycmd  this  protest,  there  is 
nothing,  or  very  little,  that  is  new  about  the  theory  which 


318  OBJECTIONS  [Letter  28 

I  have  endeavoured  to  set  forth.  I  do  not  protest  against 
any  moral  abuse  in  the  Church  of  England  or  the 
orthodox  churches— such  abuses  as  made  a  great  gulf  in 
the  days  of  Luther  between  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
and  the  Protestants,  when  indulgences  for  sins  were  sold 
by  the  cart-load.  Possibly  indeed  the  protracted  belief 
in  the  miraculous,  when  it  has  long  outlived  the  conditions 
which  made  it  natural  or  pardonable,  may  tend  to  produce 
some  moral  evil ;  some  over-estimation  of  ostentatious 
and,  so  to  speak,  theatrical  force  ;  some  depreciation  of 
the  quiet  processes  by  which  God  has  mostly  taught  and 
shaped  mankind  ;  some  latent  trust  in  a  capricious  God, 
who  will  not  "  reward  men  according  to  their  works  "  but 
will  exercise  a  dispensing  power  at  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
I  say  this  may  possibly  soon  happen,  if  it  has  not  already 
begun  to  happen  ;  but  at  all  events  it  is  at  present  latent, 
and  it  is  not  on  any  ground  of  this  kind  that  I  am  advo- 
cating a  new  view  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  My 
object  has  been  not  to  destroy  the  old  belief,  but  to 
remove  certain  obstacles  which  tend  to  prevent  people 
from  embracing  the  essence  of  the  old  belief.  The 
existence  of  a  God,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the 
conflict  between  God  and  Satan,  the  redemption  of  man- 
kind through  the  sacrifice  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God 
incarnate  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Resurrection  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  certainty 
of  a  heaven  and  hell,  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  goodness  and  God — all  these  things  I  stead- 
fastly believe.  But  I  see  not  the  slightest  reason  why,  in 
order  to  hold  fast  these  precious  truths,  I  should  be  com- 
pelled to  believe  that  Joshua  stopped  the  sun  (or  the 
earth  ?)  or  that  an  ass  talked  with  a  human  voice,  or  that 
the  incarnate  Son  of  God  drowned  two  thousand  swine  or 
destroyed  a  fig-tree  witlt  a  word. 

I  am  probably  doing  no  more  than  give  utterance  to 


Letter  28]  OBJECTIONS  319 

thoughts  which  have  been  already  expressed  by  others,  or 
which,  though  unexpressed,  are  latent  in  thousands  of 
doubtful  and  expectant  souls.  But  even  were  it  otherwise, 
even  were  it  granted  that  the  form  of  Christianity  set 
forth  in  my  letters  has  some  points  of  novelty,  is  mere 
novelty  to  suffice  for  its  condemnation  ? — and  this  in  our 
century,  when  God  has  been  teaching  and  is  teaching 
His  children  so  much  that  is  new  in  every  department  of 
knowledge  !  Is  it  absolutely  incredible  that  the  same 
Supreme  Teacher  who  allowed  some  nineteen  centuries  to 
elapse  between  the  Promise  and  the  promised  Seed,  should 
allow  another  nineteen  centuries  to  elapse  between  the 
Seed  and  the  Harvest  ?  Is  it  inconsistent  that  He  who 
has  led  men  to  the  truths  of  science  through  mistakes  and 
illusions  should  lead  men  by  the  same  paths  to  spiritual 
truth  ?  How  often  must  the  Law  of  Illusion  be  inculcated 
before  we  take  it  to  heart  ?  Illusions  have  encompassed 
spiritual  truth  for  Israel,  for  the  Jews,  for  the  Twelve  in 
their  Master's  lifetime,  for  the  first  generation  of  Christians, 
and  for  every  subsequent  generation  down  to  the  time  of 
Luther.  So  much  we  Protestants  are  bound  to  admit. 
Are  we  not  then  intolerably  presumptuous  in  assuming 
that  illusions  must  have  suddenly  disappeared  in  the 
fifteenth  century  and  have  left  the  theological  atmosphere 
for  the  first  time  since  the  creation  of  the  world  free  from 
all  spiritual  refraction  ?  How  much  humbler  and  truer 
to  suppose  that  every  century  and  every  generation  has 
its  special  cloud  of  illusions  through  which  in  due  course 
we  must  all  toil  upward,  penetrating  layer  after  layer  of 
the  illusive  mist  till  we  reach  at  last  the  summit  of  the  hill 
of  Truth  ! 

I  find  I  have  left  myself  too  little  time  to  answer  your 
last  two  objections  as  to  the  "  vagueness  "  of  my  views  and 
their  inability  to  "  commend  themselves  to  the  masses." 
I  will  try  to  answer  them  in  my  next  letter. 


320  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES 


XXIX 

My  dear , 

I  have  been  thinking  over  your  objection  that  my 
notions  are  "  vague  ;  "  feeling  that  there  is  some  truth  in  it, 
but  that  your  words  do  not  quite  express  your  probable 
meaning.  I  think  you  mean,  not  that  the  "  notions  "  are 
vague,  but  that  the  proofs  are  vague.  The  "  notions  "  are 
in  the  Creeds,  if  you  interpret  the  Creeds  spiritually  :  and 
I  do  not  think  that  the  Creeds  are  more  "  vague  "  when 
interpreted  spiritually  than  when  interpreted  literally. 
The  spiritual  Resurrection  of  Christ,  for  example— is  it 
more  vague  than  the  material  Resurrection  ?  If  you  admit 
that  there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  that  this  spirit  is  made 
apparently  powerless  by  death,  is  it  "  vague  "  to  say  that 
the  spirit  of  Jesus,  after  passing  through  this  state  ot 
death,  manifested  itself  to  the  disciples  in  greater  power 
than  ever  ?  Even  those  who  maintain  the  material 
Resurrection  admit  that  it  would  be  a  mere  mockery  with- 
out the  spiritual  Resurrection,  and  that  the  latter  is  the 
essence  of  the  act :  so  that  to  declare  the  statement  of  the 
spiritual  Resurrection  of  Jesus  to  be  "  vague,"  appears  to 
be  equivalent  to  declaring  that  any  statement  of  the  essen- 
tial Resurrection  of  Jesus  is  "  vague."  Again,  redemp- 
tion from  sin  is  a  spiritual  notion,  redemption  from  the 
flames  of  a  material  hell  is  a  material  notion  ;  but  is  the 
former  more  "  vague ??  than  the  latter  ?  If  so,  then  we  are 
led  to  this  conclusion,  that  all  spiritual  notions  are  more 
vague  than  material  notions  ;  and  the  vagueness  which 


Letter  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  321 

you  censure  is  a  necessary  characteristic  of  every  religion 
that  approaches  God  as  He  ought  to  be  approached,  I 
mean,  as  a  Spirit  and  through  the  medium  of  spiritual 
conceptions.  But  to  my  mind  you  are  not  justified  in  thus 
using  the  word  "vague," which  ought  rather  to  be  applied  to 
notions  wanderingly  and  shiftingly  defined ;  as  for  example, 
if  I  defined  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  as  being  at  onetime 
the  rising  of  His  body,  at  another  the  rising  of  His  Spirit  ; 
or  if  I  spoke  of  redemption,  now  as  deliverance  from  sin, 
and  now  as  deliverance  from  punishment.  Convict  me 
of  such  inconsistencies,  and  I  will  submit  to  be  called 
"  vague  ;  "  but  at  present  I  plead,  "  Not  guilty/' 

However  I  think  you  meant  that  the  proofs,  and  not  the 
notions  were  vague ;  and  here,  although  you  should  not  have 
used  the  word  "  vague,"  I  will  admit  that  you  would  have 
been  right  if  you  had  said  that  they  were  "complex  "  and 
"  more  easy  to  feel  than  to  define."  No  doubt  the  proof  of 
Christ's  divinity  from  the  material  Resurrection  is  simple 
and  straightforward  enough  :  "  It  is  impossible  that  a  man's 
body  could  have  arisen  from  the  grave,  and  that  the  man 
could  have  afterwards  lived  with  his  friends  on  earth  for 
several  days,  and  then  have  ascended  into  heaven,  if  he  had 
not  been  under  the  express  protection  of  God  ;  and  such  a 
man  we  are  prepared  to  believe,  if  he  tells  us  that  he  is  the 
Son  of  God."  That  certainly  would  seem  to  a  large  num- 
ber of  minds  a  very  plain  and  straightforward  argument 
— as  plain  as  Paley's  Evidences.  No  trust,  no  faith,  no 
affection,  is  here  requisite  :  nothing  is  needed  except  that 
rough  and  ready  assumption — in  which  we  are  all  disposed 
to  acquiesce — that  any  altogether  exceptional  and  startling 
power  must  come  from  God.  It  must  be  admitted  that  this 
sort  of  proof  would  be  cogent  as  well  as  direct.  Let  a 
man  rise  from  the  dead  to-morrow,  and  transport  his  body 
through  closed  doors,  and  say  that  he  is  Christ,  and  then 
mount  up  to  the  clouds  and  disappear ;  and  I  doubt  not 

Y 


322  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     [Letter  29 

many  of  those  who  saw  him  would  cry  "  This  must  be  the 
Christ/'  without  so  much  as  enquiring  what  manner  ot 
man  he  was.  But  cogent  and  popular  and  delightfully 
simple  though  it  may  be,  this  is  not  the  kind  of  proof  on 
which  Jesus  appears  to  have  relied,  or  by  which  Jesus  has 
produced  a  spiritual  change  in  the  hearts  of  mankind.  The 
very  fact  that  no  trust  or  faith  or  affection  is  needed  in  such 
a  demonstration,  unfits  it  for  spiritual  purposes.  In  order  to 
believe  in  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  a  man  needs  the  testi- 
mony of  all  his  powers,  emotional  as  well  as  intellectual,  trust 
and  love  as  well  as  reason  ;  and  I  have  endeavoured  to 
shew  above  that  the  whole  of  the  training  of  the  human 
Imagination,  and  all  the  mysterious  natural  provisions 
which  have  stimulated  the  eye  of  the  mind  to  see  what  the 
eye  of  the  body  cannot  see,  have  contributed  to  bring 
about  the  faith  in  the  risen  Saviour.  As  we  are  to  love 
God  with  our  strength  and  with  our  mind  as  well  as  with 
our  heart  and  our  soul,  so  are  we  to  believe  in  Christ  with 
the  same  collective  energy.  The  proof  therefore  of 
Christ's  Resurrection  and  of  Christ's  divinity  is  intended 
to  be,  in  a  certain  sense,  complex,  because  it  is  intended 
to  appeal  to  our  every  faculty  and  to  be  based  upon  our 
every  experience. 

But  "this  form  of  Christianity  can  never  commend 
itself  to  the  masses."  Objection  in  the  shape  of  prophecy 
is  always  difficult  to  meet,  and  not  often  worth  meeting. 
However,  this  prophecy  has  so  specious  a  sound  that  it 
deserves  some  reply.  But  first  let  me  ask,  Does  the 
present  form  of  Christianity  commend  itself  to  the  masses  ? 
Surely  not  to  the  very  poor,  that  is  to  say,  not  to  the  class 
to  whom  Christ  appears  to  have  specially  addressed  Him- 
self. And  even  among  the  classes  which  retain  the  tra- 
dition of  worshipping  Christ,  has  Christianity  been  such  as 
would  commend  itself  to  Christ?  Has  not  our  religion 
been  too  often  divorced  from  morality  ?     Has  there  been 


Letter  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  323 

dominant  among  us  that  habit  of  mutual  helpfulness — 
"  comforting  one  another,"  as  St.  Paul  calls  it— which  is 
the  criterion  of  a  truly  Christian  nation  ?     Have  not  the 
laws  in  almost  all  cases,  until  the  French  Revolution,  been 
made  in  the  interests  of  the  rich,  rather  than  in  the  interests 
of  the  poor  ;  and  where  the  poor  have  been  considered, 
has  not  the  consideration  arisen  largely  from  the  fear  of 
violence  and  revolution  ?    There  has  been  a  certain  amount 
of  alms-giving,  or  legacy-leaving,  on  the  part  of  the  minority 
who  have  laid  themselves  out  to  lead  religious  lives  ;  and 
there  has  always  been  a  still  more  select  minority  who 
have  been  imbued  with  a  truly  Christian  enthusiasm  for 
their  fellow-ereatures,  a  passionate  desire  to  do  something 
for  Christ,  and  to  leave  the  world  a  little  better  for  their 
having  lived :  but  the  great  unheeding  mass  of  men  in 
Christian  countries  has  rolled  on  in  its  selfish  path,  less 
selfish  certainly,  less  brutishly  intent  on  present  pleasure 
than  the  masses  of  heathendom,  and  indirectly  humanized 
and  leavened   by   a   thousand   Christian   influences,  but 
still  not  more  than  superficially  Christian.    The  reason  for 
this  comparative  failure  has  been,  in  part,   that  Christ 
has  not  been  rightly  presented  to  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
Too    often  it    has  not  been  Christ  at  all— it   has  been 
but  a  lifeless  semblance  of  Christianity— to  which  they 
have  given  their    adhesion.     The  fear  of  hell,  the  hope 
of  heaven— these  have  been  often  the    chief  motives  of 
religion  ;    and  alms-giving,  church-going,  Bible-reading, 
and  the  use  of  the  sacraments,  have  been  the  means  by 
which  men  have  thought  they  could  escape  the  one  and 
secure  the  other.     Asking  still  further  the  cause  for  this 
perversion,  by  which  Christ  has  been  converted  into  a 
second    Law,    we    find   that    in   some   cases,   and   more 
especially    in    recent    times,   it   appears  to   have   arisen 
in    part  from   the  miraculous  element    in  our    religion. 
This  has  made  Christ  unreal  to   some   of  us  by  taking 

Y  2 


324  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     \Letter  29 

Him  out  of  the  reach  of  our  sympathies  and  affection  ; 
this  also  has  artificialized  our  religious  conceptions  and 
divorced  our  religion  from  morality  by  making  us  think 
that  God  will  suspend  the  laws  of  spiritual  nature  for  us, 
as  He  has  suspended  the  laws  of  material  nature  for 
Christ  and  Christ's  Apostles.  Hence  has  arisen  too  often 
a  pitiable  and  preposterous  reversal  of  the  Pauline  theology. 
We  have  "died"  unto  Christ,  and  "risen  again"  unto  the 
Law.  "  Grace  "  has  fled  away,  and,  with  it,  all  natural  and 
harmonious  morality  ;  and  the  whole  duty  of  a  Christian 
man  has  been  degraded  to  a  routine  of  "  works." 

It  is  for  this  cause  that  the  morality  of  Agnostics 
frequently  surpasses  the  morality  of  professing  Christians. 
The  philanthropy  of  the  former,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  at 
all  events  perfectly  natural.  They  do  not  love  their 
brother  man  in  order  to  obey  the  Gospel  or  save  their 
own  souls;  they  love  because  they  must  love.  Christ's 
leaven  is  often  in  their  hearts  without  any  of  the  corrup- 
tions of  a  conventional  Christianity.  They  do  not  believe 
in  a  capricious  Heaven  and  Hell,  but  they  are  drawn 
towards  goodness,  kindness,  justice  and  mutual  helpfulness, 
whenever  and  wherever  they  see  them  ;  and  such  worship 
as  they  have,  they  give  to  these  qualities.  Hence  also  in 
foreign  politics  the  working  people  and  the  Agnostics 
often  manifest  a  much  purer  and  more  Christian  feeling 
than  church-goers.  For  the  Hyper-orthodox,  foreign 
politics  lie  outside  the  Bible  ;  and  whatsoever  lies  outside 
the  Bible  lies,  for  them,  outside  morality  :  but  the 
Agnostic  makes  no  such  distinction  ;  he  does  not  believe 
that  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong  can  be  miraculously 
suspended  in  favour  of  his  own  country.  The  disbelief  in 
a  future  Heaven  makes  the  poor  indisposed  to  tolerate 
present  remediable  miseries  in  the  hope  of  coming  com- 
pensation. Hence  they  shew  a  much  stronger  determi- 
nation not  to  put  up  with  a  state  of  things  in  which  the 


Letter  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  325 

happiness  and  prosperity  of  a  whole  nation  are  purchased 
by  the  misery  of  one  class.  They  are  willing  enough 
individually  to  make  sacrifices  for  one  another,  and,  in 
bad  times  the  working  people  have  sometimes  collectively 
borne  considerable  burdens  with  an  admirable  patience  ; 
but  that  the  unwilling  wretchedness  of  some  should  form 
the  basis  of  the  prosperity  of  the  rest,  and  that  the  rest 
should  be  content  to  have  it  so — this  they  cannot  endure  ; 
and  sooner  than  this,  they  would  prefer  to  see  every  class 
in  the  nation  pulled  down  two  or  three  degrees  in  wealth 
and  refinement,  if  thereby  the  lowest  class  could  be  raised 
a  single  degree. 

Rich  church-goers  are  far  more  ready  to  acquiesce  in 
present  inequalities,  sometimes  consoling  themselves  with 
the  thought  that  in  heaven  all  these  evils  will  be  re- 
dressed, sometimes  fortifying  their  acquiescence  in  the 
inevitable  with  a  text  of  Scripture.  But  the  poor  declaim 
passionately  against  the  Bible,  when  thus  quoted — as  being 
a  mere  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  rich,  and  the  priests 
their  accomplices,  to  keep  the  miserable  in  a  state  of 
contentment  with  their  misery.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  poor 
should  be  embittered  by  misrepresentations  against  that 
which  is  pre-eminently  the  poor  man's  Book  ;  for  no  tribune 
or  democrat  more  persistently  than  the  Bible  takes  the 
side  of  the  oppressed,  or  more  emphatically  declares  that  it 
is  part  of  God's  method  to  raise  up  the  poor  from  the  dung- 
hill and  to  fill  the  hungry  with  good  things,  while  He  casts 
down  the  princes  and  sends  the  rich  empty  away.  But  the 
fact  remains  that, even  when  he  raves  against  his  own  Book, 
the  poor  man  is  raving  in  the  spirit  of  the  Book.  It  is  not 
in  accordance  with  the  Bible — and  still  less  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  Christ — that 
any  nation  should  tolerate  and  perpetuate  the  misery  of 
a  class  in  order  that  the  whole  nation  may  prosper. 
Indeed  in  such  a  nation  permanent  prosperity — in  any 


326  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     {Letter  29 

sense,  and  much  more  in  the  Christian  sense — is  quite 
impossible.  Even  though  they  may  suppress  rebellion 
and  escape  revolution  for  the  time,  the  governing  classes 
cannot  escape  the  spiritual  evils  that  must  ultimately 
spring  from  that  comfortable  acquiescence  in  the 
wretchedness  of  others  to  which  they  may  give  the 
name  of  resignation  but  to  which  Christ  would  have 
given  the  name  of  hypocrisy.  Material  misery  niay  imply 
the  immorality  of  those  who  are  forced  to  endure  it  ;  but 
it  must  imply  the  immorality  and  spiritual  degradation 
of  those  who  acquiesce  in  it  because  it  does  not  come  nigh 
them,  and  because  "  the  Bible  says  it  must  be  so.;;  Let 
but  such  Pharisaism  continue  for  a  generation,  and  it  will 
have  gone  far  to  extinguish  the  purest  of  religions  and  to 
prepare  the  way  for  revolutionary  strife. 

It  appears  then  that  what  is  called  "  socialism  "  is  really 
nothing  but  a  narrow  and  unwise  form  of  Christianity  ; 
narrow  because  it  excludes  the  rich  from  its  sympathies, 
and  unwise  because,  instead  of  going  to  the  root  of  evils, 
it  simply  aims  at  the  branches  ;  capable  also,  of  course, 
(like  every  other  theory)  of  being  made  to  appear  im- 
moral, when  adopted  for  self-interested  or  vindictive  pur- 
poses— yet  nevertheless  containing  much  more  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  than  that  selfish  form  of  Christianity 
which  has  for  its  sole  object  the  salvation  of  the  individual. 
Socialism  owes  all  that  is  good  in  it  to  Christ. 

The  gigantic  evil  of  slavery  (which  is  antagonistic  to  all 
true  socialism)  after  a  contest  of  eighteen  centuries,  has 
succumbed  at  last  in  Christian  countries  to  Christ's  Spirit 
and  to  no  other  champion.  Do  you  suppose  that  it  per- 
ished owing  to  the  "march  of  intellect,"  or  the  discoveries 
of  science,  or  the  general  refinement  and  rise  in  the  stand- 
ard of  comfort  and  happiness  among  mankind  ?  There 
is  no  reason  at  all  for  thinking  so.  The  Law  of  Moses, 
as  you  know,  recognized,  though  it  controlled  and  miti- 


Letter  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  327 

gated,  the  institution  of  slavery.  The  race  that  gave 
birth  to  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Sophocles,  Phidias,  Euclid, 
Archimedes,  and  Ptolemy,  was  unable  so  much  as  to 
conceive  of  a  state  of  society  where  slavery  should  not 
exist :  civilization  appeared  to  them  to  require  the  servi- 
tude of  the  masses  as  its  necessary  foundation.  It  was 
not  cruelty  or  callousness  that  prompted  Aristotle  to 
divide  "  tools  "  into  two  classes,  "  lifeless  "  and  "  living  " 
— under  which  latter  head  came  slaves  :  it  was  want 
of  faith  in  human  nature.  "  Who  would  do  the  scullion- 
work  in  the  great  household  of  humanity  if  there  were 
no  slaves  ? ''  Such  was  the  question  which  perplexed 
the  great  philosophers  of  antiquity  and  which  Christ 
came  to  answer  by  making  Himself  the  slave  of  mankind 
and  classing  Himself  among  the  scullions.  How  strangely 
dull  and  unappreciative  do  those  words  of  Renan  sound, 
that,  if  you  deduct  from  what  Christ  taught,  what  other 
people  have  taught  before  Him,  little  will  be  left  that 
is  original  !  "  Taught  I"  It  was  not  the  teaching,  it  was 
the  doing.  Nay,  it  was  not  the  doing,  it  was  the  in- 
breathing into  mankind  of  a  new  Spirit,  by  means  of 
doing,  that  ultimately  destroyed  slavery.  "  Even  as  the 
Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to 
minister  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many" — the 
Spirit  that  dictated  these  words,  dictated  also  the  death 
upon  the  Cross  ;  and  this  Spirit  has  destroyed  slavery  and 
will  establish  true  socialism  upon  earth. 

"  But  this  Spirit  of  Christ  has  never  been  fully  obeyed 
or  even  understood  by  His  followers  :  even  St.  Paul  does 
not  seem  to  have  understood  that  Christianity  was  incom- 
patible with  slavery."  You  are  quite  right.  The  Spirit  of 
Christ  has  never  yet  been  fully  obeyed,  and,  when  we  thus 
obey  it,  life  will  be  heaven.  Do  you  not  see  that  your 
objection  ignores  the  fact  that  we  are  not  yet  in  heaven, 
and  that  Christianity  is  to  be  a  gradual  growth  ?     Are  you 


32S  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     [Letter  29 

not  a  little  like  the  child  who  sows  his  mustard- seed  at 
night  and  comes  down  next  morning  expecting  to  see 
the  great  tree  in  which  the  birds  of  the  air  ought  to  have 
built  their  nests  ?  The  important  question  is  whether 
the  Christian  Spirit  so  far  as  it  has  been  obeyed,  has 
worked  well ;  so  that  we  may  trust  it  to  lead  us  still  fur- 
ther forward  into  practical  ameliorations  of  our  existence, 
whether  individual  or  national.  But  to  expect  it  to  do 
everything  in  eighteen  hundred  years,  is  to  forget  all  the 
teaching  of  history,  astronomy,  and  geology,  three  voices 
that  unite  in  proclaiming  that  the  Hand  of  God  works 
slowly. 

And  further,  as  to  your  objection  that  even  St.  Paul  did 
not  realize  the  incompatibility  between  Christianity  and 
slavery,  what  follows  from  that  ?  Nothing  I  suppose 
except  a  confirmation  of  the  words  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
that  the  followers  of  Christ  must  not  depend  entirely  upon 
St.  Paul,  but  upon  that  Spirit  which  shall  "guide  us  into 
all  truth."  To  my  mind  it  is  refreshing  and  delightful  to 
confess  — as  I  am  sure  St.  Paul  himself  would  have  been 
the  first  to  confess— that  he  had  not  fully  realized  all  the 
consequences  to  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ  would  lead 
posterity.  I  believe  that  St.  Paul  wished  slaves  to  take 
every  lawful  opportunity  of  becoming  free,  but  that  he 
would  by  no  means  have  encouraged  slaves  to  run  away 
or  to  rise  violently  against  their  masters.  If  he  had  en- 
encouraged  them,  and  if  he  had  universally  succeeded,  he 
would  have  caused  the  whole  Empire,  all  civilized  society, 
to  collapse  at  once.  Was  he  wrong  in  not  causing  this  ?  I 
am  not  prepared  to  say  so.  I  think  he  shewed  more  states- 
manlike and  Christian  intuition  in  doing  nothing  of  the 
kind.  But  he  did  much.  He  had  no  slaves  of  his  own, 
you  may  be  sure  ;  he  worked  like  a  slave  all  night,  that 
he  might  preach  all  day :  he  bore  fetters  like  a  slave,  and 
was  proud  to  call  himself  a  slave  for  the  sake  of  Christ ; 


Letter  29]   THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  329 

he  inveighed  against  the  spirit  of  slavery,  declaring  that 
in  Christ "  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free  ;  "  and  on  the  only 
occasion  that  we  know  of,  when  he  had  to  mediate  in  a 
practical  way  between  an  angry  master  and  a  runaway 
slave,  he  sent  the  man  back  to  his  master  without  con- 
ditions or  stipulations,  but  with  a  letter  that  was  equivalent 
to  an  emancipation :  "  For  perhaps  he  was  therefore 
parted  from  thee  for  a  season  that  thou  shouldest  have  him 
for  ever  ;  no  longer  as  a  slave,  but  more  than  a  slave,  a 
brother  beloved,  specially  to  me,  but  how  much  rather  to 
thee,  both  in  the  flesh  and  in  the  Lord.  If  then  thou 
countest  me  a  partner,  receive  him  as  myself."  Was  not 
this,  practically  and  morally,  more  efficacious  than  if  the 
Apostle  had  fulminated  against  the  master  Philemon  fiery 
utterances  about  the  rights  of  man  and  the  incompatibility 
between  Christianity  and  slavery  ?  Was  not  Onesimus  more 
sure  of  being  emancipated  by  the  quiet  apostolic  method? 
Was  not  Philemon  likely  to  feel  a  quickened  sense  of  new 
and  higher  duty  when  the  Spirit  of  Christ  was  breathed 
into  his  heart  by  these  touching  and  affectionate  words, 
than  if  a  Pauline  edict  had  confronted  him  with  a  "  Thou 
shalt "  and  "  Thou  shalt  not "  ?  St.  Paul's  method  has 
been  the  method  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ :  for  eighteen 
centuries  Christ  has  been  saying  to  men,  not  "  All  slavery 
is  unlawful/'  but  to  each  master  about  each  individual 
slave, "  If  then  thou  countest  Me  a  partner,  receive  him  as 
Myself."  Hence  by  degrees  has  been  shaped  a  conviction 
that  slavery  in  itself  is  against  the  will  of  God. 

But  the  destruction  of  slavery  has  not  destroyed  other 
problems  of  life  which  still  await  their  solution  from 
Christian  socialism.  When  men  cease  to  work  from 
the  compulsion  of  a  master,  they  either  give  up  working, 
or  they  work  for  some  other  motive — their  own  subsist- 
ence, or  their  own  comfort,  luxury,  avarice,  ambition, 
the  mere  pleasure  and  interest  of  work,  or  for  the  sake  of 


33o  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     [Letter  29 

others.  Are  people  to  give  up  working  ?  And,  if  they 
work,  which  of  these  motives  is  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old  bestial  coercion  which  prevailed  in  the  days  of 
slavery  ?  These  are  the  great  questions  of  the  present, 
affecting  the  happiness,  morality,  and  religion  of  the 
whole  human  race.  True  Christians  and  true  socialists 
are  here  at  one.  "  If  a  man  will  not  work,  neither  let  him 
eat "  is  their  answer  to  the  first  question  ;  and  the  more  we 
can  combine  to  make  the  drone  feel  that  he  is  out  of  place 
in  the  hive,  and  that  he  must  either  conform  to  the  hive's 
ways  or  betake  himself  elsewhither,  the  better  will  it  be 
morally,  and  therefore  ultimately  better  in  all  respects, 
for  the  inhabitants  of  the  hive.  As  to  the  second  ques- 
tion, socialists  and  moralists  agree  that  each  must  work 
for  the  sake  of  others,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  for  all. 
To  my  mind,  therefore,  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of 
the  times  is  to  be  discerned  in  the  spread  of  the  higher 
socialist  spirit  which  protests  against  making  competition 
the  basis  of  national  prosperity.  Disguise  it  as  you  may, 
competition  contains  an  ugly  element  which  was  clearly 
brought  out  by  its  first  eulogist,  the  practical  agricultural 
Hesiod,  who  tells  us  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  strife, 
namely,  war  and  competition.  The  latter,  he  says,  is 
good  ;  for  it  rouses  even  the  sluggard  to  action,  when  he 
sees  his  neighbour  hastening  to  wealth  : 

"  —  this  strife  is  good  for  mortals, 
And  potter  envieth  potter  and  carpenter  carpenter." 

This  is  the  plain  truth.  Competition  is  always  in  danger 
of  producing  "  envy,"  and,  when  it  is  carried  consistently 
to  its  extreme — as  where  a  large  manufacturer  under- 
sells and  ruins  small  manufacturers  that  he  may  secure 
a  monopoly — it  verges  on  that  other  kind  of  strife  which 
Hesiod  has  himself  described  as  "  blameful ;  '5  it  becomes 
a  kind  of  war,  and  is  manifestly  unchristian.     Christianity 


Letter  29)     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  331 

might  have  been  therefore  expected  to  protest  against  it  ; 
but  it  has  not  done  so  :  that  task  has  been  reserved  for 
the  informal  kind  of  Christianity  called  socialism.  But 
very  much  more  than  protest  is  needed.  The  problem  of 
competition  and  how  to  dispense  with  it — or  how  to  re- 
strain it  while  remedying  its  evils — is  far  more  complex 
than  that  of  slavery.  Some  people  regard  it  as  an  inhe- 
rent law  of  human  society,  a  natural  and  continuous  deve- 
lopment of  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  existence  which 
we  have  inherited  from  our  remotest  ancestry.  Others, 
while  admitting  this  primaeval  origin,  hope  that,  as  pro- 
gressive man  has  worked  out  from  his  nature  much  else 
of  the  baser*  element,  so  he  may  in  time  eliminate  this 
also.  But,  if  any  success  is  to  be  attained,  all  sorts  of  ex- 
periments will  have  to  be  tried  ;  all  sorts  of  failures  will 
have  to  be  encountered  ;  and  it  may  be  that  in  the  end 
the  Pauline  method  of  dealing  with  slavery  may  be  found 
the  best  means  of  dealing  with  competition — not  so  much 
protesting  and  fulminating,  but  the  earnest,  informal  action 
of  individual  enthusiasm.  Action  like  St.  Paul's  may 
prepare  the  way  for  legislation  ;  but,  without  change  of 
temper,  mere  legislation  cannot  permanently  help  a  people 
to  deal  with  a  great  social  difficulty. 

In  the  solution  of  the  complicated  problems  presented 
by  competition,  socialism,  when  severed  from  Christianity, 
labours  (1885)  under  most  serious  disadvantages.  Ignoring 
Christ,  it  reads  amiss  the  whole  of  the  history  of  the  past 
and  is  in  danger  of  making  terrible  mistakes  in  the  future. 
Even  where  it  avoids  revolutionary  extravagances,  it  is 
tempted  to  trust  far  too  much  to  force,  moral  if  not  physical 
coercion,  legislative  enactments,  and  other  shapes  of  what 
St.  Paul  would  call  u  Law."  Looking  up  to  no  Leader  in 
heaven,  it  does  not  feel  sufficiently  sure  of  ultimate  success. 
"  He  that  believeth,"  says  the  prophet,  "  shall  not  make 
haste  :  "   now  socialism  has  no  firm  basis  of  belief  and 


332  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     [Letter  29 

therefore  is  disposed  to  "  make  haste,"  not  always  the 
haste  of  energy,  sometimes  the  spasmodic  haste  of  self- 
distrust  and  error,  followed  perhaps  by  dejection  or  in- 
action. Its  neglect  of  the  true  religion  leads  it  into  political 
as  well  as  religious  mistakes.  Taking  too  little  account 
of  sentiments,  imaginations,  and  associations,  it  aims 
at  a  merely  material  prosperity  which,  if  attained,  would 
leave  the  minds  of  men  still  vacant  and  craving  more  ;  and 
besides,  it  proceeds  by  methods  which  excite  alarm  and 
distrust  in  many  well-wishers.  The  most  serious  evil  of 
all  is  that  the  leaders  of  the  socialist  movement,  if  they 
themselves  see  no  Leader  above  them,  are  actuated  by  no 
sense  of  loyalty  and  affection  such  as  Christians  should 
feel  for  Christ,  and  consequently  are  far  more  exposed  to 
the  dangers  arising  from  their  own  individual  weaknesses 
and  shortcomings.  Their  mainspring  of  action  is  a 
passionate  enthusiasm  for  poor  toiling  humanity  :  but  how 
if  humanity  shews  itself  to  them  at  times  in  its  basest 
aspects,  ungrateful,  suspicious,  mean  and  shabby,  timorous 
and  traitorous,  quite  unworthy  of  their  devotion  ?  Are  they 
to  serve  such  a  god  as  this  ?  And  it  is  a  perishable  god 
too  ;  for  must  not  all  things  perish,  and  the  earth  itself 
become  ultimately  as  vacant  as  the  moon  ?  For  so  vile  a 
master  as  this,  then,  are  they  to  endure  to  be  humiliated 
and  attacked  by  the  rich  and  powerful,  envied  and  slan- 
dered by  rival  leaders,  occasionally  suspected  even  by 
the  very  poor  to  whom  they  are  giving  their  lives  ?  In 
moments  of  depression,  when  thoughts  like  these  occur — 
as  occur  they  must — it  is  hard  indeed  for  a  leaderless 
leader  of  men  to  refrain  from  flinging  up  his  task,  or 
from  continuing  to  pursue  it  out  of  mere  shame  of  incon- 
sistency, or  mere  love  of  occupation,  excitement,  and 
power.  When  that  change  comes  over  the  tribune  of  the 
poor,  all  is  over  with  him.  His  work  is  done,  though  he 
may  have  done  nothing.    Outwardlv  such  a  man's  conduct 


Later  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  333 

may  be  little  changed,  but  inwardly  his  spirit  is  dead  within 
him.  His  religion — for  it  was  a  religion  to  him — is  now 
dead  ;  and  sooner  or  later  his  changed  influence  must  make 
itself  felt  in  an  infection  of  deadness  spreading  through 
the  whole  of  the  multitudes  whom  he  once  inspired. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  that  I  look  to  a  simpler  form  of 
Christianity  as  the  future  religion  of  the  masses  ;  first 
because  I  see  that  the  most  active  religious  forces  of  the 
present  day  are  already  unconsciously  following  on  the 
lines  traced  by  Christ's  spirit ;  and  secondly,  because  these 
movements  already  exhibit  a  deficiency  which  the  worship 
of  Christ  alone  can  fill  up. 

The  worship  of  Christ  as  the  type  and  King  of  men 
helps  to  solve  the  problems  of  the  individual  as  well  as 
those  of  the  nation.  As  long  as  human  nature  is  what  it 
is,  as  long  as  friends  and  families  are  parted  by  death,  as 
long  as  the  mind  is  liable  to  be  weighed  down  by  depres- 
sion, and  the  body  to  be  racked  by  physical  pain,  so  long 
will  there  be  hours  when  we  shall  all  look  upward  and 
demand  some  other  consolation  than  the  commonplace  ; 
"These  misfortunes  are  common  to  all."  Stripped  of  all 
myth  and  miracle,  the  life  and  death  and  triumph  of  Christ 
convey  to  the  simplest  heart  the  simplest  answer  that  can 
be  given  to  the  irrepressible  question,  "  Whence  comes  this 
misery  ?  "  From  the  cross  of  Christ  there  is  sent  back  to 
each  of  us  this  answer,  "  We  know  not  fully  ;  but  our 
Leader  bore  it,  and  good  came  of  it  in  the  end."  And 
when  we  stand  at  the  brink  of  the  grave  and  ask,  "  What 
is  death  ? "  again  the  answer  comes  back  from  the  same 
source,  "  We  know  not  fully  ;  but  He  passed  through  it 
and  He  still  lives  and  reigns." 

But  besides  the  powerful  influence  of  religion  in  the 
critical  and  exceptional  moments  of  our  lives,  the  influence 
of  Christ  would  come  full  of  strength  and  blessing  to  the 
working  men  of  England  even  if  they  acknowledged  Him, 


334  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES     {Letter  29 

at  first,  in  the  most  inarticulate  of  creeds,  as  the  man 
whom  they  admired  most :  "  We  used  to  think  that  Christ 
was  a  fiction  of  the  priests  ;  at  all  events  not  a  man  like 
us  in  any  way  ;  a  different  sort  of  being  altogether  ;  one 
who  could  do  what  he  liked — so  people  said — and  turn  the 
world  upside  down  if  he  pleased  :  and  then  we  could  not 
make  him  out  at  all.  Why,  thought  we,  did  he  not  turn 
the  world  upside  down  and  make  it  better,  if  he  could  ?  It 
was  all  a  mystery  to  us.  But  now  we  find  he  was  a  man 
after  all,  like  us  ;  a  poor  working  man,  who  had  a  heart 
for  the  poor,  and  wanted  to  turn  the  world  upside  down, 
but  could  not  do  it  at  once  ;  and  he  went  a  strange  way, 
and  a  long  way  round,  to  do  it ;  but  he  has  come  nearer 
doing  it,  spite  of  his  enemies,  than  any  man  we  know  ;  and 
now  that  we  understand  this,  we  say — though  we  don't 
understand  it  all  or  anything  like  it — '  He  is  the  man  for 
us.'"  I  say  that  even  if  this  rudimentary  feeling  of 
gratitude  and  admiration  for  their  great  Leader  could 
possess  the  hearts  of  English  working  men — and  this  is 
surely  not  too  much  to  expect — much  would  come  from 
even  this  inadequate  worship.  And,  for  myself,  I  un- 
hesitatingly declare  that  I  would  sooner  be  in  the  position 
of  a  working  man  who  doubts  about  Heaven  and  Hell  and 
even  about  God,  but  can  say  of  Christ,  "  He  is  the  man  for 
me,"  than  I  would  be  in  the  position  of  the  well-to-do 
manufacturer  who  is  persuaded  of  the  reality  of  Heaven 
and  Hell  and  of  the  truth  of  all  the  theology  of  the 
Church  of  England,  but  can  reconcile  his  religion  with 
the  deliberate  establishment  of  a  colossal  fortune  on  the 
ruin  of  his  fellow  creatures. 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  the  feeling  of  the  working  man 
for  Jesus  of  Nazareth  could  long  confine  itself  to  admira- 
tion. It  is  not  so  easy  to  make  a  happy  nation  or  a  happy 
world  as  the  working  man  thinks  :  and  this  he  will  soon 
find  out.     When  sanitation,  education,  culture,   science, 


Letter  29]     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  MASSES  335 

political  rearrangements,  enlargements  for  the  poor,  and 
restrictions  for  the  rich,  have  all  clone  their  best  and 
failed — as  they  necessarily  must  fail,  unless  helped  by 
something  more — then  the  working  man  will  find  what 
that  "something  more"  is,  without  which  nothing  effectual 
can  be  done.  Then  he  will  perceive  that,  after  all,  unless 
there  is  a  spirit  of  mutual  concession  in  classes  and 
individuals,  no  Acts  of  Parliament  can  ever  be  devised  to 
secure  lasting  prosperity  and  concord.  Then  he  will 
awaken  to  the  fact  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  revealed  and 
exemplified  that  spirit  of  concession  or  self-sacrifice,  and 
that  it  was  by  this  means  that  He  went  as  far  as  He  did 
toward  "  turning  the  world  upside  down  ;  V  and  so  he  will 
be  gradually  led  still  further  to  see  that  the  way  which  He 
went  was  after  all  not  such  a  very  "  long  way  round,"  but  a 
divine  way,  a  way  truly  worthy  of  the  Son  of  God.  I 
believe  that  the  recognition  of  this  single  fact  would  go 
further  than  even  the  recognition  of  the  marvellous 
phenomena  which  manifested  the  Resurrection  of  Christ, 
to  convince  working  men  that  the  man  who  possessed  this 
sublime  intuition  into  spiritual  truth,  and  the  perfect 
unselfishness  and  self-control  needful  to  give  effect  to  his 
plans  for  the  raising  up  of  mankind,  must  be  no  other  than 
the  Son  of  God.  The  rest  would  follow.  They  would  find 
they  had  been  all  their  lives  on  a  wrong  track  in  their 
search  after  the  divine  reality  ;  worshipping  brute  force 
while  protesting  against  it  ;  bowing  in  their  hearts  to 
pomp,  and  wealth,  and  high  birth,  even  while  they  pro- 
fessed to  deride  them ;  despising  things  familiar  and  near ; 
gaping  in  stupid  servile  admiration  at  things  far  and 
unknown ;  yet  all  the  time  God  was  near  them,  among 
them,  in  them  ;  the  Spirit  of  God  was  none  other  than  the 
spirit  of  true  socialism  ;  the  Son  of  God  was  none  other 
than  the  poor  and  lowly  Workman  of  Nazareth. 


APPENDIX 


MINISTERIAL  TESTS  339 


APPENDIX 
xxx 

My  dearv , 

Excuse  my  delay  in  answering  your  letter  of  last 
month.  The  fact  is  I  have  not  so  much  leisure  as  I  had, 
I  was  glad  indeed  to  hear  from  you  (last  Christmas,  I  think) 
that  you  could  not  so  lightly  put  away  the  worship  and 
service  of  Christ  as  you  had  felt  disposed,  or  compelled 
to  do,  some  eighteen  months  before  ;  that  the  question 
appeared  to  you  now  a  deeper  one  than  you  had  then  sup- 
posed, not  to  be  decided  by  mere  historical  evidence  but, 
to  some  extent,  by  the  experience  of  life  ;  and  that  you 
were  inclined  at  least  so  far  to  take  my  advice  as  to  wait 
a  while,  to  stand  in  the  old  ways,  and  to  adhere — so  far  as 
you  honestly  could — to  old  religious  habits,  including  the 
habit  of  prayer  and  attendance  at  public  worship.  This 
was  as  much  as  I  could  reasonably  hope.  I  could  not  ex- 
pect that  a  few  letters  from  one  who  is  quite  conscious 
that  he  does  not  possess  the  strange  and  sometimes  instant- 
aneous influence  exerted  by  a  strong  religious  character, 
would  do  all  that  will,  I  trust,  be  done  for  you  by  patience, 
by  a  prayerful  and  laborious  life  devoted  to  good  objects, 
and  by  cherishing  habits  of  reverence  for  the  good,  and 
of  thoughtfulness  for  all.  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
regularly  giving  my  Sundays,  and  occasionally  some  hours 

z  2 


340  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  [Letter  30 

on  week  days,  to  our  theological  correspondence  :  but 
when  I  received  that  announcement  from  you,  I  felt  that 
my  time  might  now  be  devoted  to  other  objects,  and  I 
made  arrangements  accordingly.  Hence,  when  your 
recent  letter  reached  me,  I  was  not  quite  at  leisure  to 
reply  to  it  immediately.  But  you  pressed  me  to  answer 
"  one  last  question,"  which  I  should  rather  call  two  ques- 
tions (for  they  are  quite  distinct,  although  you  combine 
them  so  closely  as  to  leave  me  uncertain  whether  you 
recognize  the  wide  difference  between  them)  :  "  Can  a 
man  who  rejects  the  miraculous  element  in  the  Bible 
remain  a  member  or  a  minister  in  the  Church  of 
England  ? " 

Your  first  question  I  should  answer  with  an  unhesitating 
affirmative.  The  Church  of  England  does  not  require 
from  its  lay  members  any  signature  of  the  Articles  or  any 
test  but  a  profession  of  belief  in  the  Creed  at  the  time  of 
baptism,  renewed  in  the  Catechism  and  Confirmation 
service  ;  and  I  cannot  think  that  any  sincere  worshipper 
of  Christ  ought  so  far  to  take  offence  at  one  or  two  ex- 
pressions in  the  Creed — which  may  be  interpreted  by  him 
metaphorically,  though  by  others  literally — as  to  separate 
himself  on  that  account  from  the  national  church.  Grant 
that  his  interpretation  may  be  a  little  strained,  nay,  grant 
even  that  he  is  obliged  to  say  "  I  cannot  believe  this  ;  " 
yet  I  should  doubt  the  necessity,  or  even  wisdom  and 
Tightness,  of  cutting  himself  off  from  the  Church  of  England 
because  of  one  or  two  clauses  in  the  Creed,  as  long  as  he 
feels  himself  in  general  harmony  with  the  Church  doctrine 
and  services.  There  would  be  no  end  to  schisms,  and  no 
possibility  of  combining  for  worship,  if  everyone  separated 
himself  from  every  congregational  utterance  with  which 
he  could  not  heartily  agree  in  every  particular.  On  this 
point  I  find  myself  obliged  to  remember  for  my  own  sake, 
and  to  apply  to  myself,  the  advice  I   once  gave  a  very 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  341 

little  child  many  years  ago.  We  were  singing  a  hymn, 
and  had  come  to  the  words  : 

"Ah  me,  ah  me,  that  I 
In  Kedar"s  tents  here  stay: 
No  place  like  that  on  high, 
Lord,  thither  guide  my  way." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  the  child  (who  was  young  but  somewhat 
old-fashioned  in  thought  and  expression),  "  that  these  words 
mean  that  you  want  to  die,  if  they  mean  anything.  But 
I  don't  want  to  die.  So  I  don't  think  I  ought  to  say 
them."  In  my  own  mind  I  sympathized  very  much  with 
the  objector  ;  but  I  endeavoured  to  meet  the  objection. 
"  Hymns,"  I, said,  "  are  written  not  for  single  persons  but 
for  congregations.  In  a  whole  churchful  you  will  find  all 
sorts  of  people  of  different  ages  and  ways  of  thinking. 
Some  are  glad  and  strong,  others  sad  and  weak.  Some 
rejoice  in  life  and  look  forward  eagerly  to  labour.  These 
are  mostly  the  young  ;  but  the  older  sort  are  sometimes 
tired  of  life  and  longing  for  rest.  Now  when  we  are  sing- 
ing a  hymn  we  must  all  do  our  best,  young  and  old,  happy 
and  sad,  to  enter  into  one  another's  feelings,  and  we  must 
not  expect  that  every  word  in  every  hymn  will  precisely 
represent  our  own  particular  feelings  at  the  moment  :  the 
time  will  perhaps  come  when  the  words  that  now  seem 
meaningless  to  us  will  exactly  represent  our  deepest 
feelings,  and  we  shall  wonder  how  we  could  have  ever 
failed  to  feel  them  ;  but  for  the  present  we  must  not  be 
disposed  always  to  be  asking,  'Do  I  agree  with  this? 
Do  I  exactly  feel  that  ? '  Of  course  if  it  occurs  to  you 
that  these  or  those  words  are  so  opposite  to  what  you 
think,  that  you  would  be  telling  a  lie  to  God  in  uttering 
them,  why  then  you  must  not  utter  them  :  but  you  ought 
not  to  suppose  that  in  a  church  service  God  exacts  from 
you  a  rigid  account  for  every  word  of  the  congregational 
utterances   in  which  you  take  part :    if  you  can  heartily 


342  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  [Letter  30 

join  in  the  greater  part  of  the  service,  do  not  be  afraid; 
He  accepts  your  prayers  and  praises/'  Many  years  have 
passed  away  since  I  spoke  thus  :  and,  since  then,  I  have 
found  myself  often  obliged  to  repeat  to  myself,  for  my 
own  guidance,  the  advice  which  I  then  gave  to  guide 
another.  In  a  public  service  one  must  give  and  take, 
and  I  see  no  reason  at  all  why  a  believer  in  non-miracu- 
lous Christianity  should  not  find  himself  in  harmony  with 
the  services  of  the  Church  of  England.  His  interpreta- 
tion both  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Prayer-book  will  be 
different  from  that  of  most  of  the  congregation  ;  but  he 
will  accept  both  the  Bible  and  the  Prayer-book  as  the 
best  books  that  could  be  used  for  their  several  purposes, 
and  would  be  sorry  to  see  them  replaced  by  anything  that 
could  be  devised  by  himself  or  by  those  who  think  as 
he  does. 

So  far  I  can  speak  confidently  ;  but  I  am  more  doubtful 
as  to  the  answer  that  should  be  given  to  your  second 
question,  "  Can  a  believer  in  non-miraculous  Christianity 
remain  a  minister  in  the  Church  of  England  ?  "  Looking 
at  the  Articles,  if  I  were  forced  to  assume  that  every  one 
of  them  is  binding  on  a  Church  of  England  minister,  I 
should  say  that  a  belief  in  the  miraculous  is  necessary  for 
every  one  who  can  honestly  sign  an  assent  to  the  Article 
on  Christ's  Resurrection,  which  asserts  that,  "  Christ  did 
truly  rise  again  from  death,  and  took  again  His  body  with 
flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining  to  the  perfection 
of  man's  nature,  wherewith  He  ascended  into  heaven." 
These  words  distinctly  declare  the  Resurrection  of 
Christ's  material  body ;  and  as  I  do  not  believe  in 
the  fact,  I  cannot  assent  to  the  words,  nor  do  I  see  how 
any  believer  in  non-miraculous  Christianity  can  assent 
to  them. 

Perhaps  you  may  think,  in  your  innocence,  that  this 
disposes  of  the  question,  arguing  logically  thus  :   {t  The 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  343 

Church  of  England  appoints  certain  Articles  as  tests  of 
belief  for  her  ministers  ;  A  cannot  assent  to  one  of  these 
Articles  ;  therefore  A  has  no  right  to  remain  a  minister  : 
there  is  no  loophole  out  of  this  logical  statement  of  the 
case."  There  is  not  :  and  if  the  Church  of  England  were 
governed  in  accordance  with  logic,  I  (and  a  good  many 
others)  ought  to  have  left  the  ranks  of  her  ministers  as 
soon  as  we  found  that  we  had  been  forced  to  reject  a 
single  clause  of  a  single  Article.  But  the  Church  has  not 
been  for  several  generations  governed  in  this  logical  way. 
Besides  practically  and  generally  allowing  among  its 
members  a  great  degree  of  freedom  and  latitude,  it  has 
enlarged  that  latitude  during  the  last  generation  by  a 
specific  and  authoritative  alteration  of  the  terms  of  sub- 
scription to  the  Articles.  When  I  signed  them — which  I 
did,  with  perfect  honesty  and  sincerity,  some  three  or  four 
and  twenty  years  ago — we  were  obliged  to  "  assent  and 
consent"  to  "  each  and  every"  Article  in  each  particular  : 
I  forget  the  exact  terms,  but  I  know  they  were  as  stringent 
as  they  well  could  be.  But  in  1865  the  Clerical  Sub- 
scription Act  introduced  a  new  form  : — "  I  assent  to  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  of  Religion  and  to  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer.  ...  I  believe  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England  as  therein  set  forth  to  be  agreeable  to  the  Word 
of  God."  Now  if  "  therein  "  meant  "in  each  and  every 
clause  of  each  and  every  Article,"  that  would  have  been 
tantamount  to  a  mere  repetition  of  the  old  requirement. 
Obviously  therefore  this  alteration  implies  an  obligation 
of  the  subscriber  to  assent,  no  longer  to  "  each  and  every 
Article"  in  particular,  but  to  the  Articles  as  a  whole, 
regarded  as  an  expression  of  Anglican  doctrine.  Conse- 
quently, at  present,  the  necessity  of  subscription  need  not 
repel  any  one  unless  he  finds  himself  unable  to  accept 
"the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  as  set  forth," 
not  in    detail,  but    generally,  in   the   Articles    and   the 


344  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  {Letter  30 

Prayer-book  ;  and  I  need  not  say  that  a  believer  in  non- 
miraculous  Christianity  by  no  means  occupies  a  position 
of  such  dissent  as  this. 

The  only  obstacle  therefore  for  a  scrupulous  minister 
will  be  in  the  services  of  the  Church  and  in  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  :  and  here  I  admit  that  there  is  a  very  con- 
siderable obstacle,  though  it  appears  to  me  to  be  less  than 
it  was  a  dozen  years  ago,  and  each  year  lessens  it  still 
further.  The  difficulty  lies,  not  in  the  scepticism  of  the 
minister  (who  may  be  a  more  faithful  worshipper  of 
Christ  than  any  one  in  his  flock)  nor  in  any  congregational 
suspicion  or  alarm  (for  his  advanced  views  lie  quite 
beyond  the  horizon  of  the  thoughts  of  any  country  con- 
gregation, and  any  but  an  exceptional  congregation  else- 
where) but  almost  entirely  in  the  minister's  own  uneasy 
sense  of  a  difference  between  himself  and  his  people  ;  in 
his  fear  that  he  may  be  acting  hypocritically  ;  in  his 
consequent  loss  of  self-respect ;  and  in  a  resulting  demo- 
ralization affecting  all  his  work. 

Clearly  this  is  a  difficulty  which  would  be  diminished, 
if  not  altogether  removed,  by  publicity  ;  but  as  long  as  it 
is  not  publicly  recognized  that  widely  different  interpreta- 
tions of  the  Scripture  are  possible  and  compatible  with 
the  worship  of  Christ,  the  difficulty  is  a  very  serious  one. 
Whenever  such  a  man  reads  the  Bible  in  the  discharge 
of  his  public  duty,  he  is  liable  to  be  haunted  with  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  is  two-faced.  He  conveys  to  his  con- 
gregation an  obvious  meaning  and  they  assume  that  he 
accepts  that  meaning  himself ;  but  he  does  not.  Suppose, 
for  example,  he  reads  the  story  of  the  battle  of  Beth- 
horon  :  his  congregation  believes  that  it  is  listening  to  the 
most  stupendous  miracle  that  the  world  has  witnessed  ; 
the  minister  believes  that  he  is  reading  an  account  of  one 
of  the  twenty,  or  more,  decisive  battles  of  history.  Simi- 
larly, in  the  New  Testament,  if  he  reads  the  narrative  of 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  345 

the  feeding  of  the  4,000  or  5,000,  he  reads  it  as  a  religious 
legend,  curiously  preserving  a  deep  spiritual  truth,  but  of 
no  value  except  for  its  emblematic  meaning ;  but  his  con- 
gregation listens  to  him  as  if  he  were  reciting  one  of  the 
most  important  proofs  that  Jesus  was  no  mere  man,  but 
truly  the  Son  of  God.  I  do  not  wish  to  exaggerate  the 
difference  between  the  rationalizing  minister  and  the 
literalizing  congregation.  Both  he  and  they  believe  that 
in  the  battle  of  Beth-horon  God  was  working  out  the 
destiny  of  Israel  and  preparing  for  Himself  a  chosen 
.people  ;  both  he  and  they  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
the  true  Bread  of  Life  ;  and  similarly,  as  regards  many 
other  miraculous  narratives  of  the  Scriptures,  the  con- 
gregation and  the  minister,  though  divided  as  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  historical  fact,  will  be  united  in  ac- 
cepting the  spiritual  interpretation  which  is  the  essence 
of  the  narrative.  Moreover,  every  year  is  probably  in- 
creasing the  number  of  the  laity  who  take  the  same 
esoteric  view  as  the  minister  takes  about  many  of  the 
miracles.  In  any  educated  congregation  there  must 
be  a  large  number  of  men,  and  there  will  soon  be  a  large 
number  of  women,  who  do  not  believe  in  the  literal 
stories  of  Balaam's  ass,  Elisha's  floating  axe-head,  and 
Samson's  exploit  with  the  jaw-bone.  Unless  educated 
people  are  kept  out  of  our  churches,  or  separate  them- 
selves from  the  Church,  this  number  must  soon  increase. 
Thus  the  gulf  between  the  rationalizing  minister  and  the 
congregation  tends  yearly  to  diminish  through  the  action 
of  the  congregation  ;  and  if  only  both  the  esoteric  and 
the  exoteric  interpretation  of  the  Scripture  were  generally 
recognized  as  being  compatible  with  the  faithful  worship 
of  Christ,  I  do  not  see  why  the  minister  should  not 
claim  for  himself,  without  any  sense  of  constraint  or 
insincerity,  the  same  freedom  of  interpreting  the  Bible 
which  is  accorded  to  the  laity. 


346  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  {Letter  30 

There  still  remains  however  the  clause  in  the  Creed 
stating  the  Miraculous  Conception,  which  to  me  appears 
the  greatest  difficulty  of  all.  It  is  one  thing,  in  my  judg- 
ment, to  repeat  the  prayers  of  the  Church  and  to  read 
passages  from  the  sacred  books  of  the  Church,  as  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  congregation,  and  rather  a  different 
thing  to  stand  up  and  say — not  only  as  the  mouthpiece 
of  the  congregation,  but  in  your  individual  character,  as  a 
Christian,  and  as  a  priest  as  well — "  I  believe  this,  or 
that,"  and  to  take  money  for  so  saying  ;  while  all  the  time 
you  are  saying  under  your  breath,  "  But  I  only  believe  it 
metaphorically. ';  Here,  again,  my  scruples  would  be 
removed,  if  it  were  only  generally  understood  that  the 
metaphorical  interpretation  was  possible  and  permissible. 
As  regards  the  Athanasian  Creed,  for  example,  I  should 
have  no  scruples  at  all.  For  the  tone  and  spirit,  as  well 
as  for  the  phraseology,  of  that  Creed,  I  feel  the  strongest 
aversion.  Yet  I  should  repeat  it  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  congregation  without  any  hesitation,  because  they 
would  all  know  that  the  Church  of  England,  so  far  as  it 
can  speak  through  the  archbishops  and  bishops,  has 
signified  that  the  repulsive  clauses  in  the  Creed  may  all 
be  so  explained  as  practically  to  be  explained  away.  I 
do  not  in  the  least  believe  that  this  mild  interpretation  of 
the  damnatory  clauses  explains  their  original  meaning  ; 
but  that  matters  little  or  nothing.  Provided  there  be  no 
suspicion  of  insincerity,  I  am  willing  to  make  considerable 
sacrifices  of  personal  convictions  in  so  complex  a  rite  as 
congregational  worship.  The  clergyman  whom  I  most 
respect  has  not  read  the  Athanasian  Creed  for  thirty 
years  :  for  my  own  sake,  as  a  participator  in  the  worship 
of  his  church,  I  rejoice  ;  but  all  my  respect  for  him  did 
not  prevent  me  from  doubting  sometimes  whether  he  was 
right  in  this  matter,  until  I  found  that  his  action  had 
been  prompted  by  an  expression  of  feeling  on  the  part  of 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  347 

some  representative  members  of  his  congregation.  For 
if  one  clergyman  is  justified  in  omitting  the  Athanasian 
Creed  whenever  he  likes,  I  do  not  see  why  another  is  not 
justified  in  reading  it  whenever  he  likes  :  the  liberty  of  the 
clergy  might  easily  become  the  slavery  of  the  laity.  I 
should  therefore  be  ready  to  read  the  repugnant  Athan- 
asian Creed  because  every  member  of  my  congregation 
would  know  (and  I  should  feel  justified  in  letting  them 
know  from  the  pulpit)  that  I  read  it  in  obedience  to  the 
law  and  in  spite  of  my  convictions.  But  I  am  not  so 
ready,  at  present,  to  read  the  Apostles'  Creed  or  Nicene 
Creed,  although  I  cordially  accept  them  except  so  far  as 
concerns  the"  one  word  which  expresses  the  Miraculous 
Conception.  My  reason  is,  that  I  should  not  like  to 
leave  my  congregation  under  the  impression  that  I  ac- 
cepted that  dogma,  and  on  the  other  hand  I  should  not 
feel  justified  in  using  a  pulpit  of  the  National  Church 
to  explain  why  I  rejected  it. 

Here  again,  as  in  the  previous  instance,  I  feel  that  times 
are  rapidly  changing,  and  the  freedom  of  ministers  in  the 
Church  of  England  is  rapidly  increasing.  For  scruples  as 
to  the  use  of  the  Creeds,  no  less  than  for  scruples  as  to  the 
reading  of  the  Scriptures,  publicity  is  the  chief  remedy 
wanting  to  dissipate  scruples  ;  and  time  is  on  the  side  of 
freedom.  Belief  in  miracles  now  rests  on  an  inclined 
plane  ;  friction  is  daily  lessening,  the  downward  motion  is 
rapidly  increasing  ;  in  a  few  more  years  the  authorities  of 
the  Church  of  England  may  recognize,  not  with  reluctance 
but  with  delight,  that  there  are  some  young  men  who 
know  enough  of  Greek,  and  of  history,  and  of  evidence, 
to  be  convinced  that  the  miracles  are  unhistorical,  and 
who,  nevertheless,  are  worshippers  of  Christ  on  conviction, 
with  a  faith  not  to  be  shaken  by  anything  that  science 
or  criticism  can  discover,  and  with  a  readiness  to  serve 
Christ,  as  ministers  in  the  English  Church,  if  they  can  do 


34«  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  [Letter  30 

so  without  sacrifice  of  their  opinions  and  without  suspicion 
of  insincerity. 

Personally,  I  have  not  felt  these  scruples  very  acutely. 
Circumstances  have  placed  me  where  nothing  has  been 
required  of  me  which  might  not  have  been  done  as  well 
by  a  Nonconformist  as  by  a  member  of  the  Church  of 
England.  To  help  a  friend,  or  do  occasional  work  in  an 
unofficial  way,  has  never  caused  me  the  least  misgiving  ; 
for  I  have  always  remained  in  cordial  accord  with  the 
forms  of  worship  current  in  the  Church  of  England.  The 
only  difference  that  my  views  have  made  in  my  clerical 
action  has  been  this,  that  I  have  preferred  for  a  time  not 
to  place  myself  in  any  position  where  ministerial  work 
might  officially  be  required  of  me.  Yet  even  these 
scruples  have  been  doubtfully  entertained,  and  would 
vanish  altogether  if  ever  I  were  to  publish  a  volume  of 
such  letters  as  I  am  now  writing  to  you,  so  that  I  could 
be  sure  that  my  opinions  were  no  secret  from  my  Bishop 
and  from  such  members  of  my  congregation  as  were  likely 
to  understand  them. 

The  advice  which  I  have  given  to  myself,  I  should 
also  be  inclined  to  give  to  others  who  are  already  ministers 
in  the  Church  of  England,  and  who  have  scruples  of  con- 
science in  consequence  of  some  divergence  from  orthodox 
views  :  "  Stay  where  you  are,  as  long  as  you  feel  that 
you  can  sincerely  worship  Christ  as  the  Eternal  Son  of 
God,  and  as  long  as  you  can  preach  a  gospel  of  faith 
and  strength,  not  only  from  the  pulpit  but  also  by  the 
bedside  of  the  dying.  If  you  can  do  this,  you  may 
stay,  though  you  are  obliged  to  interpret  metaphorically 
some  expressions  in  the  Creed.  If  you  cannot  do  this, 
go  at  once,  even  though  you  can  accept  every  syllable 
in  all  the  Creeds  in  the  most  literal  sense." 

To  young  men  who  have  not  yet  been  ordained  and 
who  incline  to  "rational"  views  of  Christianity,   I  have 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  349 

been  disposed  hitherto  to  give  different  advice  :  "  Wait 
a  while.  The  fashion  of  men's  opinion  is  rapidly  changing  ; 
the  excessive  fear  of  science  on  the  part  of  the  Clergy — 
many  of  whom  come  from  Public  Schools  where  they  have 
received  no  training  in  the  rudiments  of  science  or 
mathematics — is,  strange  to  say,  predisposing  all  but  ex- 
treme High  Churchmen  to  welcome  the  adhesion  of  any 
who  are  firm  believers  in  Christ,  even  though  they  may 
doubt  or  reject  the  miracles.  It  would  be  a  miserable 
thing  to  be  ordained,  and  to  undertake  the  task  of  preach- 
ing a  doctrine  implying  the  highest  conceivable  morality, 
and  presently  to  find  yourself  condemned  by  those  to 
whom  you  should  be  an  example  as  well  as  an  instructor, 
for  what  appears  to  them  patent  insincerity — condemned 
by  others,  and  perhaps  not  wholly  acquitted  by  yourself. 
In  a  few  years  you  may  perhaps  find  it  possible  to  be  or- 
dained not  upon  tolerance  but  with  a  hearty  reception,  and 
then  there  need  be  no  concealment  of  your  opinions." 

Such  is  the  language  that  I  have  hitherto  used  on  the 
very  few  occasions  when  I  have  been  consulted,  generally 
advising  delay.  But  now  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
time  has  come  when  young  men  with  these  opinions  ought 
not  to  wait,  but  ought  at  least  to  set  their  case  before  the 
Bishops,  leaving  it  to  them  to  accept  or  refuse  them  as 
candidates  for  ordination.  Schisms  and  prosecutions  are 
very  objectionable  things,  but  there  are  worse  evils  even 
than  these.  There  is  the  danger  of  hypocrisy,  spreading, 
like  an  infection,  from  oneself  to  others.  The  hour  has 
perhaps  come  ibr  authorizing  or  condemning  the  extreme 
freedom  of  opinion  which  some  of  the  Broad  Churchmen 
have  assumed.  Proverbs  and  texts  might  be  quoted  in 
equal  abundance  to  justify  action  or  inaction  in  the  ab- 
stract ;  but  two  important  practical  considerations  appear 
to  me  to  dictate  some  kind  of  action  without  delay. 

On  the  one  hand,  we  hear  the  complaint  that  the  ablest 


35o  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  {Letter  30 

and  most  conscientious  men  are  deterred  by  scruples  from 
entering  the  ministry  in  the  Church  of  England,  even 
when  they  feel  a  strong  bent  for  clerical  work.  If  this 
scarcity  of  able  candidates  for  ordination  continues  for 
many  more  years,  we  shall  have  bad  times  in  store  for  us. 
Already  I  think  I  have  noted,  among  some  ministers  who 
are  conscious  of  but  little  intellectual  and  not  much  more 
spiritual  power,  a  disposition  unduly  to  magnify  their 
office,  the  ritual,  the  mechanical  use  of  the  sacraments, 
parochial  machinery,  processions,  sensational  hymns, 
church  salvation-armies,  and  church-routine  generally, 
because  they  feel  they  have  no  evangelic  message  of  their 
own,  no  individual  inspiration.  In  some  degree,  such  a 
subordination  of  self  is  good  and  may  argue  modesty  ; 
but  in  many  cases  it  is  not  good,  when  it  leads  young  men 
to  materialize  and  sensualize  religion,  to  suppose  that  the 
preaching  of  Christ's  Gospel  and  the  elevation  of  the  souls 
of  men  can  be  effected  by  ecclesiastical  battalion  drill ;  to 
dispense  with  study,  thought,  and  observation  ;  to  acquiesce 
in  the  letter  of  the  collected  dogmas  of  the  past,  and  to 
hope  for  no  new  spiritual  truth  from  the  progress  of  the 
ages  controlled  by  the  ever  fresh  revelations  of  the  Spirit 
of  God. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  opposite  evil,  on  which 
I  have  already  touched — I  mean  the  danger  that  some  of 
the  more  intellectual  among  the  clergy,  those  who  do  not 
sympathize  with  sacerdotalism  and  are  popularly  reckoned 
among  the  "  Broad  Church,"  may  not  only  be  suspected 
of  insincerity  in  professing  to  believe  what  they,  as  a  fact, 
disbelieve,  but  may  also  become  actually  demoralized  by 
self-suspicions  and  hence  indirectly  demoralize  their  con- 
gregations. I  confess  my  sympathies  are  very  much  with 
a  man  in  that  position.  He  has  been  sometimes  the  victim 
of  cruel  circumstances.  In  his  youth,  the  religious  prob- 
lems of  the  present  day  lay  all  in  the  background.    Before 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  351 

he  was  ordained,  he  may  very  well  have  discerned  no 
difficulties  at  all  in  the  career  before  him,  nothing  but 
the  prospect  of  a  noble  work,  to  which  he  felt  himself 
called.  His  life  was  probably  spent  in  a  public  boarding- 
school,  where  he  scarcely  ever  had  a  minute  to  himself 
for  thought  and  meditation  ;  it  being  the  ideal  of  the 
educator  so  to  engross  the  time  and  energy  of  each  pupil 
in  studies  or  in  games  that  the  average  youth  might  be 
kept  out  of  moral  mischief  and  the  clever  youth  might  get 
a  scholarship  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  When  he  came 
to  the  University  he  found  himself  expected  to  devote 
himself  to  "  reading  for  a  degree,"  and  there  was  little  or 
no  time  for v  theology  ;  after  taking  his  degree  he  found 
himself  under  the  necessity  of  earning  his  living,  and  if 
he  was  intending  to  become  a  clergyman  he  naturally 
desired  to  be  ordained  as  soon  as  possible.  If  he  was  very 
fortunate,  he  may  have  contrived  (as  I  did)  to  get  a  year's 
reading  at  theology  while  he  supported  himself  by  taking 
pupils  ;  but  that  was  probably  the  utmost  of  his  prepara- 
tion. Soon  after  reaching  his  twenty-third  year  he  was 
ordained.  And  now,  for  the  first  time,  leaving  school  and 
college,  he  begins  to  realize  what  life  means,  and  to  think 
for  himself.  Can  we  wonder  that  this  "  thinking  for 
himself "  produces  considerable  changes  of  thought?  If 
he  is  healthy,  and  active  in  his  parish,  and  has  not  much 
time  for  reflection  and  reading,  the  changes  will  be  long 
deferred,  and  he  will  be  scarcely  conscious  of  them- :  but 
if  he  has  any  mind  at  all  in  him,  and  gives  it  the  least 
exercise,  it  is  hardly  possible  that  an  able  and  honest 
student  of  the  Bible  at  the  age  of  forty-six,  when  he  comes 
to  compare  the  opinions  of  his  manhood  with  those  of  his 
youth,  will  not  find  that  he  has  ceased  to  believe,  or  at  all 
events  to  be  certain  of,  the  historical  accuracy  of  a  good 
deal  which  he  accepted  with  unquestioning  confidence  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three. 


352  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  {Letter  30 

Changes  of  this  kind  are  inevitable,  and  they  ought  not 
to  be  feared.  Yet  perhaps  the  fear  of  them  deters  some 
of  the  more  thoughtful  young  men  from  presenting  them- 
selves for  ordination.  They  know  that  they  believe  in 
such  and  such  facts  now,  but,  say  they,  "  Many  sincere 
and  thoughtful  persons  dispute  the  truth  of  these  facts  ; 
and  what  will  be  my  position  some  ten  years  hence  if  I  find 
that  I  am  driven  to  deny  what  I  now  affirm  ? "  What 
one  would  like  to  be  able  to  reply,  in  answer  to  such  an 
appeal,  would  be,  that  the  worship  of  Christ  does  not 
depend  upon  the  truth  of  a  few  isolated  and  disputable 
pieces  of  evidence,  but  upon  the  testimony  of  the  con- 
science based  upon  indisputable  (though  complex)  evi- 
dence ;  so  that,  if  the  man's  conscience  remains  the  same, 
he  need  not  fear  lest  the  fundamental  principles  of  his 
faith  will  be  shaken  by  any  historical  or  scientific  criticism. 
From  the  terrestrial  point  of  view,  Christ  is  human 
nature  at  its  divinest.  Whoever  therefore  in  the  highest 
degree  loves  and  trusts  and  reveres  human  nature  at  its 
divinest,  he  naturally  worships  a  representation  of  Christ, 
even  though  he  may  never  have  heard  of  the  name. 
Now  life  will  bring  a  young  man  many  disappointments 
and  disillusions  and  paradoxes  :  but  no  one,  who  has 
once  worshipped  Christ  in  this  natural  way,  need  fear  (or 
hope  ?)  that  life  will  ever  bring  him  anything  more  worthy 
of  representing  human  nature  at  its  divinest,  anything 
therefore  more  worthy  of  worship,  than  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
The  only  danger  is,  that  one  may  cease  to  be  able  to  love 
and  trust  and  revere  the  objects  that  deserve  these  feelings. 
There  is  indeed  that  danger,  just  as  there  is  the  danger 
that  one  may  cease  to  be  able  to  be  honest.  But  what 
young  man,  in  mapping  out  his  future,  would  make  in- 
surance against  such  a  moral  paralysis  ?  A  man  ought 
no  more — a  man  ought  still  less — to  contemplate  the 
possibility  of  becoming  unable  to  worship  Christ,  than 


Letter  30]  MINISTERIAL  TESTS  353 

the  possibility  of  becoming  unable  to  revere  a  kind  father 
or  love  affectionate  children.  If  then  our  candidate  for 
ordination  regards  Christ  in  this  spirit,  one  would  like  to 
encourage  him  to  present  himself  for  ordination  even 
though  he  may  already  doubt  the  Biblical  narrative 
on  some  points,  and  though  he  may  be  pretty  certain 
that  he  will  change  his  mind  on  many  others  by 
the  time  he  is  twice  as  old  as  he  is  now.  However  it 
rests  very  much  with  Bishops  to  settle  this  question  ;  and 
the  question  as  to  what  the  Bishops  might  do  is  so 
important  as  to  demand  a  separate  letter. 

P.S.  Since  writing  the  above  remarks  about  the  reluct- 
ance of  the  ablest  men  at  the  Universities  to  be  ordained, 
I  have  been  told  that  the  state  of  things  is  even  worse  than 
I  had  conceived  at  Cambridge.  There,  at  the  two  largest 
colleges,  Trinity  and  St.  John's,  I  am  told  that  of  the 
Fellows  who  took  their  degrees  between  1873-9  only  eight, 
out  of  sixty  or  thereabouts,  took  holy  orders  ;  and  of  those 
who  took  degrees  between  1880-6,  only  three  out  of  sixty. 
Trinity  is  conspicuous  ;  of  the  sixty  Fellows  who  took 
degrees  from  1873-86  only  two  have  been  ordained. 


A  A 


354  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO 


XXXI 

My  dear , 

I  reminded  you  in  my  last  letter  that  ordination  or 
non-ordination  must  largely  depend  upon  the  judgment  of 
the  Bishops.  This,  I  suppose,  must  have  always  been  the 
case  to  some  extent  :  but  there  are  reasons  why  it  may 
well  be  so  now  to  a  greater  extent  than  before.  The 
important  change  made  in  the  form  of  subscription  to  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  has  supplied  a  solid  and  definite 
ground  upon  which  the  Bishops  may  fairly  claim  to 
ascertain  from  candidates  for  ordination  some  details 
about  their  religious  opinions.  In  the  times  when  candi- 
dates had  to  assent  to  every  point  in  every  Article,  no 
further  examination  was  necessary :  but  now  that  the 
candidate  is  allowed  (by  implication)  to  dissent  from  some 
things  in  the  Articles,  the  Bishop  may  surely,  without 
any  inquisitorial  oppression,  say  :  "  Before  I  ordain  you, 
I  should  like  to  know,  in  a  general  way,  how  far  your 
dissent  from  the  Articles  extends."  Some  Bishops  may 
be  inclined  to  shrink  from  such  an  interrogation,  as 
though  it  implied  doubt  of  the  candidate's  sincerity  :  and 
of  course  such  an  examination  might  be  abused  in  a 
narrow  or  bigoted  or  even  tyrannical  manner.  But  on  the 
whole,  I  think,  it  might  be  even  more  useful  as  a  pro- 
tection and  help  to  the  young  candidate  than  to  the 
Bishop.  Here  and  there,  perhaps,  a  young  man  might 
be  advised  to  give  up,  or  defer,  the  prospect  of  ordination  ; 
but  others   (who   would  have   otherwise  been   deterred 


Letter  i>i\     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  355 

by  scruples)  might  be  encouraged  to  be  ordained  in  spite 
of  some  intellectual  difficulties  ;  and  this  fatherly  encour- 
agement from  a  man  of  authority  and  experience  would  be 
a  great  help  and  comfort,  strengthening  the  young  man  in 
the  conviction  that  mere  intellectual  difficulties  could  not 
interfere  with  his  faith  in  Christ.  Still  more  valuable 
would  be  the  young  man's  consciousness  that  he  could 
not  be  called  insincere  or  hypocritical,  since  he  had  con- 
cealed nothing  from  the  Bishop,  who,  after  hearing  all, 
had  decided  that  there  was  nothing  to  exclude  him  from 
ordination. 

I  would  therefore  advise  any  man  who  desired  to  be 
ordained  but  was  deterred  by  present  scruples  or  the  fear 
of  future  scruples,  to  write  at  an  early  period  to  the  Bishop 
at  whose  hands  he  would  be  likely  to  seek  ordination, 
stating  his  difficulties  frankly  and  fully,  and  asking 
whether  they  would  be  considered  an  impediment.  If  he 
felt  any  touch  of  doubt  on  the  subject  of  the  miracles,  I 
would  have  him  make  them  the  subject  of  a  special 
question.  In  some  dioceses  I  should  expect  the  answer 
to  be  unfavourable.  From  others  perhaps  the  answer 
would  come  that  the  Bishop  was  "  unwilling  to  undertake 
so  heavy  a  responsibility ;  each  man  must  decide  for 
himself  whether  he  can  honestly  read  the  services  of  the 
Church  and  the  lessons  from  the  Scriptures  without 
believing  in  miracles."  That  answer  would  be,  in  my 
judgment,  regrettable,  though  not  unnatural  or  indefen- 
sible. But  even  that  answer  would  be  of  value,  as  it 
would  be  a  record  that,  at  all  events,  the  Bishop  had  not 
been  kept  in  ignorance  of  anything  that  the  candidate 
ought  to  have  revealed  to  him  :  and  this  in  itself  would  be 
of  great  value  in  lightening  for  a  scrupulous  and  self- 
introspective  young  man  the  burden  of  the  questions 
which  might  sometimes  arise  in  his  mind  as  he  read 
aloud  in  the  congregation  the  words  of  the  Bible  or    the 

A.  A  2 


356  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO     [Letter  31 

Prayer-book.  Moreover,  I  should  anticipate  that  every  year 
would  see  an  increase  in  the  number  of  those  dioceses 
from  which  a  still  more  favourable  answer  might  be 
returned  :  "  If  with  all  your  heart  you  worship  Christ  as 
the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  if  you  can  honestly  and  sincerely 
accept  the  Church  services  as  excellent  (though  imperfect) 
expressions  of  congregational  worship  ;  and  the  Scriptures 
as  super-excellent  (though  imperfect)  expressions  of  spiri- 
tual fact  ;  if  you  feel  that  you  have  a  message  of  good 
news  for  the  poor  and  simple  as  well  as  for  the  rich  and 
educated,  and  that  you  can  preach  the  spiritual  truths 
which  you  and  all  of  us  recognize  to  be  the  essence  of 
the  Gospel,  without  attacking  those  material  shapes  in 
which,  for  many  generations  to  come,  all  spiritual  truths 
must  find  expression  for  the  vast  majority  of  Christians, 
then  I  can  encourage  you  to  come  to  the  ministry  of  Christ. 
I  myself  am  of  the  old  school  and  believe  in  the  miracles, 
or  if  not  in  all,  at  all  events  in  most ;  but  I  recognize  that 
this  belief — though  to  me  it  seems  safer  and  desirable— is 
not  essential  :  come  therefore  to  the  ministry,  with  the 
miracles  if  you  can,  without  them  if  you  cannot." 

Here  indeed  is  a  reasonable  criterion  of  fitness  for 
ordination  :  and  if  a  man  cannot  satisfy  this,  I  do  not 
see  how  he  can  complain  of  being  excluded.  But  no 
other  criterion  seems  likely  to  be  permanently  tenable. 
For  imagine  yourself  to  be  a  Bishop,  trying  to  lay  down 
sttme  short,  precise,  and  convenient  test,  as  regards  the 
belief  in  the  miraculous  :  where  are  you  to  draw  the  line  ? 
A  young  man,  eminently  fit  in  all  respects  for  ministerial 
work,  comes  to  you  and  says  that  he  accepts  all  the 
miracles  but  one  ;  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  believe  that 
Joshua  stopped  the  movement  of  the  sun  (or  earth). 
What  are  you  to  do  ?  Reject  him  ?  Surely  not :  not 
even  though  you  were  Canon  Liddon,  raised  (as  I  hope  he 
will  be  raised)  to  the  episcopal  bench.     The  Universities 


Letter  31]     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  357 

would  join  in  protest  against  your  bigotry  ;  the  whole 
of  educated  society  would  secede  from  the  Church  on 
such  conditions  :  the  masses  of  non-Christian  and  semi- 
Christian  working  men  would  cry  out  that  such  a  rejection 
was  a  portent  of  tyranny,  and  that  the  men  who  could 
accept  admission  to  the  priesthood  on  such  terms  as  these 
were  no  better  than  superstitious  dolts  and  slaves, 
creatures  to  be  suppressed  in  a  free  country  !  Well, 
then,  you  admit  him  :  will  you  reject  his  younger  brother 
next  year,  who  finds  that  he  cannot  accept  the  miracle  of 
Balaam's  ass  speaking  with  a  human  voice?  Certainly 
you  will  admit  him  too.  And  now  where  are  you  to 
stop  ?  If  you  admit  a  man  who  denies  two  miracles,  will 
you  accept  a  man  who  denies  a  third,  say,  the  miracle  of 
Elisha's  floating  axe-head  ?  And  if  three,  why  not  four  ? 
why  not  five  ?  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  list  ? 

Again,  a  man  comes  to  you  and  says  that  he  feels 
obliged  to  reject  as  an  interpolation — although  willing  to 
read  them  as  part  of  an  erroneous  but  long  cherished 
tradition — the  well-known  words  at  the  end  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  "  for  thine  is  the  kingdom,  the  power  and  the 
glory,  for  ever  and  ever  :  "  what  will  you  do  to  him  ? 
Refuse  him  ?  Surely  not.  The  Revisers  of  the  New 
Testament  have  themselves  rejected  the  addition,  and 
I  am  quite  sure  no  scholar  who  valued  God's  Word,  and 
certainly  no  Bishop,  would  wish  to  reject  a  man  for  pre- 
ferring the  New  Version  of  the  Bible  to  the  Old.  But,  if 
you  admit  him,  what  are  you  to  say  to  his  companion, 
who  rejects  also  the  last  twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark's 
Gospel?  In  my  opinion,  a  man  must  be,  Hellenistically 
speaking,  an  "  idiot," — a  Greek  "  idiot,"  what  the  Greeks 
call  idiotes — to  believe  in  their  genuineness.  But  even 
though  you,  being  a  busy  Bishop,  may  have  forgotten  a 
good  deal  of  Greek,  you  cannot  forget  the  decision  of  the 
Revisers.     For  here  again  the  Revisers  are  on  the  young 


358  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO     [Letter  si 

man's  side.  They  have  printed  this  passage  as  a  kind  of 
Appendix,  placing  an  interval  between  it  and  the  Gospel, 
and  appending  this  note  :  "  The  two  oldest  Greek  MSS. 
and  some  older  authorities,  omit  from  verse  9  to  the  end. 
Some  other  authorities  have  a  different  ending  to  the 
Gospel."  Now  if  you  admit  the  rejecter  of  these  two 
passages,  will  you  refuse  his  companion,  who  tells  you 
he  is  compelled  to  agree  with  the  Revisers  also  as  to  a 
third  passage,  John  vii.  53 — viii.  11,  where  the  Revised 
Version  brackets  several  verses,  adding  this  note,  "  Most 
of  the  ancient  authorities  omit  John  vii.  53 — viii.  11. 
Those  which  contain  it  vary  much  from  each  other  "  ? 
You  must  certainly  accept  him.  But  if  you  accept  him, 
what  are  you  to  say  to  young  men  who  go  further  and 
reject  whole  books  of  the  New  Testament,  for  example, 
the  Second  Epistle  of  St.  Peter ;  the  genuineness  of 
which  has  been  impeached  by  a  great  consent  of  autho- 
rities, and  concerning  which  Canon  Westcott  says  that  it 
is  the  "one  exception"  to  the  statement  that  the  com- 
bined canons  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  would 
produce  "a  perfect  New  Testament"?  And  if  we  let 
him  pass,  under  Canon  Westcott's  wing,  how  shall  we 
deal  with  the  next  candidate,  who  reminds  us  that 
Luther  rejected  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Epistle  of  St. 
James,  and  declares  that  he  cannot  help  agreeing  with 
Luther  ?  What  lastly  is  to  be  the  fate  of  those  who  avow 
that  they  cannot  shut  their  eyes  to  the  traces,  even  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  of  considerable  interpolations  or  late 
traditions,  especially  in  those  portions  which  contain 
miraculous  narrative?  Perhaps  we  might  feel  inclined 
to  say,  "  We  will  take  our  stand  on  Westcott  and  Hort's 
text,  or  on  the  text  of  the  Revised  Version,  and  will 
refuse  any  candidate  who  rejects  a  word  of  the  New 
Testament  that  is  contained  in  either  of  these  texts  ;  the 
line  must  be  drawn  somewhere,,  and  we  will  draw  it  there." 


Letter  31]     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  359 

What  !  Shall  we  reject  a  candidate  for  ordination  because 
he  does  not  accept  the  Gospel  according  to  Westcott 
and  Hort,  or  the  Gospel  according  to  an  unauthorized 
though  scholarly  knot  of  men  called  the  Revisers? 
Impossible  !  all  Christendom  would  cry  shame  upon  us. 
On  the  whole,  we  seem  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that  no  candidate  for  Anglican  ordination  can  be  reason- 
ably rejected  for  believing  that  parts  of  the  Bible  are 
spurious  or  un-historical,  provided  that  he  is  willing 
to  read  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation  the  portions 
of  Scripture  appointed  by  the  Church. 

If  the  test  of  miracles  fails,  and  if  the  test  of  an  in- 
fallible book  fails,  so  too  does  failure  await  the  test  of 
an  infallible  Creed.  It  would  be,  at  all  events,  departing 
strangely  from  the  spirit  of  the  Reformers  and  from  the 
spirit  of  the  Articles,  to  allow  men  laxity  as  regards  the 
interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  which  are  regarded  as 
specially  inspired,  and  yet  to  pin  them  to  the  letter  of  the 
Creeds,  which  are  regarded  as  being  authoritative  because 
they  are  based  on  the  Scriptures.  If  a  candidate  were  to 
tell  you,  his  Bishop,  that  "  he  accepted  the  Resurrection 
of  Christ,  and  even  of  Christ's  body,  but  that  he  could  not 
honestly  say  that  Christ  rose  on  the  third  day ;  for  Christ 
was  buried  on  the  evening  of  Friday,  and  rose  early  on 
the  morning  of  Sunday,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  second  day," 
you  would  perhaps  reason  with  him,  and  say  that  it  was 
the  Jewish  way  of  reckoning  ;  and  if  he  were  then  to 
reply  to  you  that  to  the  greater  part  of  the  congregation 
this  way  of  reckoning  was  unknown,  and  that  the  phrase 
might  therefore  convey  a  false  impression — what  would 
you  say  to  this  ultra- conscientious  young  man  ?  This 
probably  :  that  "  the  Creeds  of  Christendom  could  not  be 
disturbed  on  account  of  the  eccentricities  of  well-meaning 
individuals  ;  that,  if  this  was  his  only  obstacle,  you,  his 
Bishop,  could  take  upon  yourself  to  justify  him  in  repeating 


360  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO     [Letter  31 

these  words  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  congregation ; 
that  it  was  quite  open  to  him  to  explain  the  true  meaning 
of  the  words  from  the  pulpit  ;  and  that  little  misunder- 
standings of  this  kind,  if  indeed  there  was  danger  of  any, 
were  insignificant  as  compared  with  belief  in  the  essential 
fact  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead." 

When  the  young  man  goes  out — probably  satisfied,  un- 
less he  is  very  obstinate,  and  you  a  little  impatient — let 
us  suppose  that  another  man  comes  in,  with  a  different 
objection  to  the  same  clause.  He  accepts  the  essential 
fact  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead,  and  he  does  not  object 
to  the  words,  "  the  third  day,"  but  he  does  not  believe 
that  the  material  body  of  Jesus  rose  from  the  tomb.  He 
believes  that  Jesus  Himself,  that  is  to  say,  His  spirit, 
rose  from  the  dead,  and  that  He  manifested  Himself  to 
His  disciples  in  a  spiritual  body,  which,  in  accordance 
with  some  law  of  our  human  spiritual  nature,  was  mani- 
fested to  those,  and  only  to  those,  who  loved  Him  or 
believed  in  Him.1  This  is  a  more  serious  objection  by 
far :  for  you  have  to  consider,  first,  whether  the  young 
man  is  likely  to  hold  fast  his  belief  in  the  spiritual 
Resurrection  of  Jesus,  when  based  on  such  evidence  as 
this  ;  and  secondly  whether  he  can  preach  the  Gospel  of 
the  risen  Saviour  without  raising  all  sorts  of  questions 
and  difficulties  in  minds  unprepared  to  grapple  with  them. 
At  this  point,  then,  I  cannot  blame  your  episcopal  judg- 
ment if  you  take  time  to  decide,  and  if,  before  deciding, 
you  do  your  best  to  ascertain  what  manner  of  man  you 
have  to  deal  with,  and,  in  particular,  whether  his  stability 
is  equal  to  his  ability.  "  Doubts  and  difficulties "  may 
sometimes  betoken,  not  so  much  a  mind  that  thinks  for 
itself,  as  a  disposition  to  affect  singularity  and  to  strain 
after  constant  novelty.  But  if  you  are  satisfied  on  this 
point,  I  think  you  would  do  well  to  admit  him  to  ordina- 

1  For  the  apparent  exception  of  St.  Paul,  see  above,  p.  244. 


Letter  2i\     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  361 

tion.  I  would  not  exclude  from  the  ministry  any  one  who 
can  conscientiously  worship  Christ  in  accordance  with 
the  services  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  preach  the 
Gospel  without  shaking  the  faith  of  the  masses. 

Perhaps  I  shall  seem  to  you  (not  now  in  the  temporary 
episcopal  capacity  which  you  have  occupied  during  the 

last  few  paragraphs,  but  as  plain )  very  illiberal 

in  excluding  from  the  broad  boundaries  of  the  National 
Church  those  who  are  unable  to  worship  Christ.  But  I 
am  not  prepared  to  alter  the  N  icene  Creed  or  the  Church 
Services  ;  and  if  I  could  not  worship  Christ,  I  cannot 
think  that  I  myself  should  desire  to  be  included  in  the 
Church  of  England,  as  long  as  that  Creed  and  the  Church 
Services  remained  in  use.  For  how  could  I  offer  prayer 
to  Jesus  ?  or  say,  in  any  sense,  "  I  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ,  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  very  God  of  very 
God  "  ?  No  plea  of  metaphor  would  ever  enable  me  to 
repeat  these  words  with  any  honesty,  as  long  as  I  found 
myself  unable  to  worship  Christ.  I  confess  to  a  secret 
feeling  that  many  of  those  who  at  the  present  time  think 
they  do  not  worship  Christ,  do  in  reality  worship  Him  ; 
and  I  have  good  hopes  that  some  of  them  may,  in  time, 
when  they  search  out  their  deepest  feelings,  find  out  that 
they  have  long  been  unconsciously  worshipping  Him,  and 
that  they  can  accept,  with  a  spiritual  interpretation,  some 
things  that  have  hitherto  appeared  to  them  inadmissible.1 
But  to  demand  that  the  Creeds  and  Church  Services  may 
be  remoulded,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  asking  to 
be  allowed  to  put  a  metaphorical  interpretation  on  one  or 

1  You  should  look  at  a  most  interesting  and  instructive  article  by  Dr. 
Martineau  in  the  Christian  Refor?ner(yo\.  i.  p.  78),  in  whichhe  points  out 
that,  in  a  certain  sense,  the  faith  professed  by  Trinitarians  "  in  the  Son,  is 
so  far  from  being  an  idolatry,  that  it  is  identical,  under  change  _ of  name, 
with  the  Unitarian  worship  of  Him  who  dwelt  in  Christ.  He  who  is  the  Son 
in  one  creed  is  the  Father  in  the  other  ;  and  the  two  are  agreed,  not  indeed 
by  any  means  throic^hout,  but  in  that  which  constitutes  the  pith  and  kernel 
of  both  faiths." 


362  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO      {Letter  31 

two  phrases  in  them.  When  Parochial  Councils  are  estab- 
lished, it  may  be  found  ultimately  possible  to  give  some 
larger  latitude  in  the  modification  or  multiplication  of 
Services  so  as  to  make  them  more  inclusive  :  but,  after 
all,  congregations  meet  for  worship,  not  for  the  sake  of 
being  liberal  and  inclusive  ;  and  the  inclusion  of  non- 
worshippers  of  Christ  can  hardly  be  demanded  from  a 
Church  that  worships  Christ.  Nor  must  the  inclusion 
of  "  advanced  thinkers  "  be  carried  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  exclude  the  great  mass  of  ordinary  believers. 

I  myself,  deeply  though  I  sympathize  in  all  essential 
matters  with  the  Church  of  England,  should  neverthe- 
less be  willing  not  only  to  be  excluded  from  it,  but 
also  to  see  excluded  all  who  may  take  the  same  views 
as  I  take,  rather  than  that  the  simple  faith  in  Christ 
entertained  by  the  great  body  of  Christians  should  be 
injured  by  the  premature  disruption  of  those  material 
beliefs  and  integumentary  illusions  with  which,  at  present, 
their  spiritual  beliefs  are  inseparably  connected.  And 
this  brings  me  to  another  side  of  the  question.  If  I  were 
publishing  an  appeal  to  the  Bishops,  I  should  certainly 
add  an  appeal  to  the  younger  Broad  Church  clergy. 
It  ought  not  to  be  asking  too  much  from  a  young 
preacher  who  is  an  "  advanced  thinker,"  to  remember  that 
some  reverence  is  due  to  the  simpler  members  of  his 
flock.  Many  of  those  whom  he  authoritatively  instructs  are 
older,  wiser  at  present,  of  larger  experience  in  life,  some 
of  them  perhaps  more  spiritually  minded,  than  he  is. 
What  if  their  deepest  and  most  cherished  religious  con- 
victions, right  in  the  main,  are  tied  to  certain  expressions 
and  narratives  that  may  not  be  historically  accurate? 
Does  it  follow  that  their  feelings  are  to  be  outraged 
at  any  moment  by  assaults  upon  the  ancient  forms 
and  expressions  of  their  belief  from  the  lips  of  a  young 
man  who  professes  to  accept  these  forms,  and  takes  the 


Letter  i\\     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  363 

money  of  the  Church  for  accepting  them  ?  Such  attacks 
upon  the  forms  are  at  present  worse  than  useless,  because 
they  are  sure  to  be  construed  into  attacks  upon  the 
spirit.  In  time  a  change  will  come,  and  even  now  a 
minister  may  do  something  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
change.  He  may  institute  Bible  lectures  to  which  he 
may  invite  the  attendance  of  those  alone  who  wish  to 
study  the  Bible  critically,  and  those  whose  reading  and 
attainments  qualify  them  to  criticize,  or  to  follow  criticism. 
But,  from  the  pulpit,  matter  of  this  kind  should  be 
altogether  excluded. 

Nor  need  the  preacher  fear  lest  such  restriction  should 
shackle  his  liberty  and  take  the  life  out  of  his  sermons. 
In  almost  every  case  one  invariable  rule  can  be  laid 
down  which  will  give  ample  scope  to  him  and  no  offence 
to  his  hearers :  "Always  preach  what  you  believe  to  be 
true,  and  never  go  out  of  your  way  in  order  to  attack 
what  you  believe  to  be  untrue."  For  example,  your  flock 
believes  that  Christ's  body  (the  tangible  body)  was  raised 
from  the  grave  ;  you  do  not.  Well  then,  do  not  attack 
their  material  belief;  but  preach  your  spiritual  belief. 
Teach  them  that  Christ's  Resurrection  implies  a  real 
though  invisible  triumph  over  the  invisible  enemy  death  ; 
a  real,  though  invisible,  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God  ; 
a  real,  though  invisible,  presence  in  the  heart  of  every 
one  who  loves  and  trusts  Him.  Thus  you  may  teach  the 
habit  of  reverence,  simultaneously  with  the  habit  of 
inquiry  ;  a  love  of  the  old  forms,  combined  with  a  still 
deeper  love  of  the  new  truths  that  may  be  discovered 
beneath  them  ;  thus  you  will  not  shake  the  faith  of  a 
single  child  ;  you  will  be  impressing  upon  all  alike  un- 
adulterated, precious  truth  without  sacrificing  a  tittle  of 
your  own  convictions  ;  and  at  the  same  time  you  will  be 
insensibly  preparing  the  younger  portion  of  your  flock 
to   detach   the   material   part    of    their  belief  from    the 


364  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO     {Letter  31 

spiritual,  and  to  retain  the  latter  when  the  time  may 
come  that  shall  force  them  to  give  up  the  former.  In  a 
similar  spirit  you  should  deal  with  the  Ascension  and  the 
Incarnation,  not  pointing  out  the  difficulties  involved  in 
the  material  belief  of  those  dogmas,  nor  saying  a  word 
to  disparage  those  who  believe  in  them,  but  doing  your 
utmost  to  bring  out  the  spiritual  truths  and  invisible 
processes  which  are  represented  by  those  dogmas. 
Surely  such  a  self-restraint  as  this  is  not  more  than 
may  fairly  be  demanded  from  any  honourable  man,  I 
will  not  say  from  a  Christian,  but  from  a  gentleman. 
Your  congregation  are  in  their  own  parish  church  ;  they 
are  bound  by  conventional  respect  and  by  deeply- 
rooted  reverence  for  tradition  and  for  the  House  of  God, 
not  to  manifest  any  such  open  disapprobation  of  your 
teaching  as  would  be  freely  permissible  at  a  public  meet- 
ing ;  you  are  their  servant,  and  the  servant,  the  paid 
servant,  of  the  National  Church ;  and  yet  you  have 
them  at  your  mercy  while  you  stand  in  the  pulpit. 
Profound  consideration  may  fairly  be  expected  from 
you  for  their  prejudices,  as  you  may  please  to  call 
them  ;  and  all  the  more  because  they  are,  as  it  were,  in 
possession  of  the  church,  while  you  are  an  innovator, 
holding  what  must — at  all  events  for  some  time  to  come — 
appear  to  the  multitude  an  entirely  new  doctrine  :  they 
"  stand  on  the  old  ways." 

If  the  teachers  of  natural  or  non-miraculous  Christianity 
could  be  trusted  to  preach  in  this  spirit,  they  might,  I  think, 
do  a  good  work  as  ministers  in  the  Church  of  England, 
without  injury  to  themselves,  and  with  much  advantage  to 
the  nation.  If  not,  they  must  come  out  of  the  Church  for 
the  purposes  of  teaching  ;  and  that,  I  fear,  would  result  in 
mischief  both  for  the  Church  and  for  the  State.  I  believe 
that  not  a  few  of  the  educated  clergy  are  either  suspending 
their  belief  about  miracles,  or  have  decided  against  them  ; 


Letter  31]     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  365 

and  if  these  were  suddenly  to  be  banished,  or  gradually  to 
drop  out  of  the  clerical  ranks  without  receiving  any  suc- 
cessors of  their  way  of  thinking,  the  gulf  would  be  widened 
between  the  clergy  and  the  educated  laity.  The  men  who 
might  discover  new  religious  truth  and  prepare  the  way  for 
new  religious  development,  having  henceforth  to  earn  their 
living  in  other  ways,  would  find  little  leisure  for  critical 
study.  The  end  would  be  that  the  nation  would  be  for  a 
time  divided  between  superstition  and  agnosticism  ;  and 
sober  religion  would  go  to  the  wall. 

Not  indeed  that  the  destinies  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
are  to  be  supposed  to  be  permanently  determinable  by  the 
fate  of  a  fraction  of  the  Broad  Church  section  of  the 
English  clergy  !  The  attraction  of  the  natural  worship  of 
Christ — strange,  nay,  impossible  though  it  may  seem  when 
first  presented  to  the  miracle-craving  mind — is  far  too 
great  to  admit  the  possibility  of  its  ultimate  failure.  But 
first  there  must  come  a  vast  and  depressing  defection  on 
the  part  of  those  nominal  Christians  who  have  hitherto 
worshipped  Christ  on  the  basis  of  an  infallible  Church, 
or  on  the  basis  of  an  infallible  Book,  or  on  the  basis  of 
indisputable  Miracles.  Perhaps  this  collapse  will  be  pre- 
cipitated by  the  discovery  of  a  copy  of  some  Gospel  of  the 
first  century,  turned  up  when  Constantinople  is  evacuated 
by  the  Turks.  You  cannot  have  forgotten  how  this  year 
(1885)  the  educated  religious  world  in  England  held 
its  breath  in  horrible  suspense  when  the  correspondent 
of  the  Times  telegraphed  that  among  the  Egyptian  manu- 
scripts recently  purchased  by  an  Austrian  arch-duke,  there 
had  been  disinterred  a  fragment  belonging  to  a  Gospel 
preceding,  and  differing  from,  any  now  extant.  From  this 
terrible  discovery  orthodoxy  was  delivered,  for  this  once, 
by  the  learning  of  Professor  Hort :  but  who  shall  guarantee 
that  a  Professor  Hort  shall  be  able,  or  even  willing,  to 
deny  the  proto-evangelic  claims  of  the  next-discovered 


366  WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO     {Letter  31 

manuscript  from  the  East  ?     And  then,  what  will  become 
of  some  of  us  ! 

In  any  case,  with  or  without  such  discoveries,  the 
present  word-faith,  and  book-faith,  and  authority-faith  in 
the  Lord  Jesus,  must  sooner  or  later  collapse  ;  and  people 
must  be  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Him- 
self must  somehow  be  worshipped  through  Himself — Jesus 
through  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  that  Spirit  which  is  apparent 
in  families  and  nations  and  Churches  as  well  as  in  the 
New  Testament,  the  Spirit  of  Love  whence  springs  that 
mutual  helpfulness  which  in  the  New  Testament  we  call 
" fellowship "  and  in  the  newspapers  "socialism."  This 
and  this  alone  will  help  us  to  apply  our  science  to  settle 
land  questions,  Church  questions,  and  war  questions,  policy 
domestic  and  foreign,  and  to  establish  concord  in  the 
world,  the  nation,  and  the  human  heart.  I  do  not  say  that 
a  time  will  ever  come  when  there  will  be  no  obstacles  to 
faith  in  Christ.  Moral  obstacles  will  still  exist  to  make  faith 
difficult :  but  some  at  least  of  the  intellectual  difficulties 
by  which  we  now  shut  ourselves  out  from  Christian  hope 
will  then  be  dissipated.  Odium  theologicum  will  become 
meaningless.  There  will  have  arrived  at  last  that  blessed 
time,  predicted  (1603)  by  Francis  Bacon  (shall  we  say  just 
three  hundred  years  too  soon  ?),  bringing  with  it "  the  con- 
sumption of  all  that  can  ever  be  said  in  controversies 
of  religion  ; "  and  henceforth  there  will  be  no  "  contro- 
versies,5' only  discussions  and  discoveries. 

Then,  with  its  mind  freed  from  superstitious  terrors  and 
full  of  an  unquenchable  hope,  the  human  race,  owning  its 
allegiance  to  the  Eternal  Goodness,  and  accepting  as  its 
captain  the  Working  Man  of  Nazareth,  will  address  itself 
steadily  to  the  work  of  Christian  socialism,  honouring 
and  encouraging  labour  without  unwise  and  spasmodic 
pampering  of  it,  dishonouring  and  discouraging  idleness 
without  unwise  and  direct  recourse  to  forcible  suppression 


Letter  31]     WHAT  THE  BISHOPS  MIGHT  DO  367 

of  it ;  remembering  always  that,  as  the  ideal  Working 
Man  was  subject  to  law,  so  must  they  be  subject  to  law, 
and  as  He  bore  suffering  for  the  good  of  others,  so 
must  they  be  prepared  to  suffer  as  well  as  to  work.  This 
is  true  socialism  and  this  is  true  Christianity.  Do  you 
deny  it,  and  say,  "  This  is  not  the  Christianity  that  has 
been  current  for  eighteen  centuries"  ?  I  reply,  Perhaps 
not ;  and,  if  it  is  not,  we  can  call  it  by  some  other  name. 
You  remember  the  saying  of  Lessing,  that  after  eighteen 
centuries  of  Christianity,  it  was  high  time  to  try  Christ. 
Let  us  then  amend  our  phrase  and  say  that  true  socialism 
will  not  be  "  the  Christian  religion  "  but  something  better. 
It  will  be  the  Christian  Spirit. 

We  are  taught  by  our  Scriptures  that  it  has  been  some- 
times God's  method  to  teach  the  wise  in  this  world  by- 
means  of  those  whom  the  world  calls  foolish,  and  the 
strong  and  the  rich  in  this  world  by  those  whom  the  world 
calls  weak  and  poor.  If  history  is  thus  to  repeat  itself,  it 
may  be  reserved  for  the  semi-Christian  or  non-Christian 
working  man,  for  the  heretic  or  agnostic  socialist,  to  guide 
orthodox  and  religious  England  into  a  higher  and  purer 
and  more  spiritual  form  of  Christianity.  Yet  on  the  other 
hand,  since  intellectual  movements  come  often  from  above, 
though  moral  movements  come  from  below,  I  cannot  give 
up  the  hope  that  it  may  be  reserved  for  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England  to  do  something  towards  the  removal 
of  those  merely  intellectual  difficulties  which  are  at 
present  keeping  multitudes  of  the  workers,  and  not  a  few 
of  the  thinkers,  in  our  country,  from  recognizing  their 
true  Deliverer. 


DEFINITIONS  369 


DEFINITIONS 

i.  Reality 

1.  Absolute  reality  cannot  be  comprehended  by  men,  and 

can, only  be  apprehe?ided  as  God  or  in  God  by  a 
combination  of  Desire  and  Imagination,  to  which 
we  give  the  name  of  Faith. 

2.  Among    objects  of  sensation    those    are  (relatively) 

real  which  present  similar  sensations  in  similar 
circumstances. 

ii.  Force 

"  Imagined  "  is  inserted,  throughout  these  Definitions, 
as  a  reminder  that  the  existence  of  all  these  objects 
of  definition,  however  real,  is  suggested  to  us  by  the 
Imagination. 

Force  is  that  which  is  imaghied  to  immediately  pro- 
duce, or  tend  to  produce,  motion. 

Why  "  immediately  "  ?  Because  a  particle  of  "  matter  " 
— attracting,  as  it  does,  every  other  particle  of  "  matter  " — 
may  be  said  to  "  tend  to  produce  motion."  Yet  "  matter  " 
is  not  said  to  be  force,  but  to  "exert""  force.  "  Matter" 
is  imagined  to  attract  "matter"  through  the  medium  of 
force,  or  "mediately."  But  force  is  imagined  to  act 
"  immediately."     Hence  the  insertion  of  the  word. 

B  B 


37o  DEFINITIONS 


iii.  Cause  and  Effect 

When  one  thing  is  imagined  to  produce,  or  te?id  to 
produce,  a  second,  the  first  is  called  the  Cause  of 
the  second,  and  the  seco?id  the  Effect  of  the  first. 

iv.  Spirit 

Spirit,  i.e.  Breath  or  Wind,  is  a  metaphorical  name — 
implying  subtleness,  invisibility,  ubiquitous7iess  and 
life-giving  power — given  to  the  ultimate  Cause  of 
Force;  and 'hence  sometimes  to  the  Cause  of  beneficent 
Force  in  the  Universe,  i.e.  God ;  sometimes  to  the 
Cause  of  Force  i?i  the  human  individual;  more 
rarely  to  the  Cause  or  Causes  of  maleficent  Forces 
in  the  Universe. 

v.  Matter 

The  existence  of  Matter  has  never  been  proved  ;  and 
it  is  nothing  but  a  hypothesis.  All  the  phenomena  called 
"material"  might  be  explained,  without  Matter,  by  the 
hypothesis  of  a  number  of  centres  of  force.  The  raison 
d'etre  of  Matter  is  the  notion  of  tangibility.  But  scien- 
tific men  now  tell  us  that  ho  atom  ever  touches  another. 
If  this  be  so,  scientific  tangibility  disappears  and  the 
raison  d'etre  of  Matter  disappears,  with  it.  But  it  is  so 
natural  a  figment  that  we  shall  all  probably  talk  about 
it,  and  most  of  us  probably  will  believe  in  it,  until  human 
nature  is  very  much  changed. 

Matter  cannot  be  defined  positively  except  by  repeating, 
in  some  disguise,  the  word  to  be  defined,  as  thus  : — 

Material,  or  Matter,  is  a  name  given  to  an  unascer- 
tained,   and    hypothetical    "  material"    "  matter, 


DEFINITIONS  371 

"  substance"  or  "fundamental  stuff"  of  which  we 
commonly  imagine  all  objects  of  sensation  to  be 
composed. 


vi.  Nature 

1.  Nature  ?nea?zs  sometimes  the  if)  ordinary,  or  (2)  orderly 

course  of  things  apart  from  the  present  and  direct 
intervention  of  human  Will;  sometimes  the  (3) 
ordinary  or  (4)  orderly  course  of  humanity ;  so?ne- 
times  the  (5)  ordinary  or  (6)  orderly  course  of  all 
things. 

2.  Law  of  Nature  is  a  metaphorical  name  for  a  frequently 

observed  sequence  of  phenomena  {apart  from  human 
Will),  implying,  to  some  minds,  regularity ;  to 
others,  absolute  invariability. 

3.  Miracle  means  a  supposed  suspension  of  a  Sequence, 

or  Law,  of  Nature;  Marvel,  or  Mighty  Work, 
means  a  rare  Sequence  of  Nature,  in  which  great 
Effects  are  produced  by  Causes  seemingly,  hit  not 
really,  inadequate. 

4.  "  Supernatural"  is  the  name  given,  in  these  letters, 

to  the  existeiice  of  a  God;  ajid  to  His  creation  and 
continuous  development  of  all  things :  the  divine 
action  bei?ig  regarded,  not  as  co7itrary  to  Nature, 
but  as  above  Nature;  not  as  suspending  the 
sequences  of  Nature,  but  as  originating  and 
supportijig  them. 


vii.  Will 

The  Will  is  the  power  of  giving  to  some  one  of  our 
desires,  or  to  some  07ie group  of  compatible  desires, 
permanejit  predominance  over  the  rest. 


372  DEFINITIONS 

An  addition  might  be  suggested  :  "  the  power  of  con- 
trolling our  desires."  But  we  appear  never  to  control  our 
desires  except  by  enthroning  some  one  desire  (or  group 
of  desires) — whether  it  be  the  desire  to  gain  power,  to 
ruin  an  enemy,  to  do  right,  or  to  serve  God. 

viii.  Attention 

Attention  is  the  power  by  which  we  impress  upon  our 
mind  that  which  is  present. 


ix.  Memory 

Memory  is  the  power  by  which  we  retain  or  recatl 
to  our  mind  that  which  is  past. 


x.  Imagination 

Imagination  is  the  power  by  which  we  combine  or 
vary  the  me?ital  images  retained  by  Memory,  ofte?i 
with  a  view  to  finding  some  unity  in  them;  aiid  by 
which  we  are  enabled  to  image  forth  the  future 
through  anticipating  its  harmony  with  the  past 
and  present. 

xi.  Reason 

Reason  {or,  as  some  prefer  to  call  it  in  this  limited 
sense,  Understanding)  is  the  power  by  which  we 
compare,  and,  from  our  comparisons,  draw  infe?'- 
ences  or  conclusions.  By  means  of  it  we  compare 
the  suggestions  of  the  Imagination  with  the  sugges- 
tions of  Experie7ice,  and  accept  or  reject  the  former 
in  accordance  with  the  result  of  our  comparison. 


DEFINITIONS  373 

xii.  Hope 

Hope  is  desire,  of  which  we  imagine  the  fulfilment ', 
while  recognizing  the  presence  of  doubt. 

xiii.  Faith 

The  following  Definition  appears  to  me  to  be  the  basis 
of  all  theology.  It  is  no  more  than  an  emphatic  restate- 
ment of  the  old  saying,  "  Faith  is  the  assurance  of  (or 
giving  substance  to)  things  hoped  for."  Since  hope  is  but 
a  weaker  and  more  hesitant  form  of  desire,  the  imaging 
forth  of  {ox  giving  substance  to)  things  earnestly  hoped  for 
must  imply  the  vivid  imagination  of  the  fulfilment  of 
things  desired. 

Faith  (when  not  loosely  used  for  Belief)  is  desire 
(approved  by  the  Conscience)  of  which  we  imagiiie 
the  fulfilment,  while  putting  doubt  at  a  distance. 

"  Faith  in  a  friend  "  means  a  desire — as  well  as  a  belief 
— that  he  will  do  what  you  think  he  ought  to  do.  "  Faith  " 
should  never  be  used  to  express  a  belief  that  something 
undesirable  or  wrong  will  happen,  e.g.  *'  I  have  great 
faith  that  the  boy  will  go  wrong."  "Faith"  in  the 
uniformity  of  Nature  implies  a  desire  that  Nature  should 
be  uniform,  and  a  feeling  that  it  is  God's  will.  In 
moments  when  we  dread  the  uniformity  of  Nature  we 
should  say  that  we  have  a  "  conviction  "  or  "  expectation  " 
of  it,  not  that  we  have  "  faith  "  in  it. 

"  Putting  doubt  at  a  distance  is  intended  to  include  the 
different  degrees  of  faith :  in  the  highest  faith,  the 
"  distance  "  is  infinite. 


374 


DEFINITIONS 


"  When  "  faith  "  is  said  to  be  "  shaken,"  we  may  mean 
that,  though  the  desire  may  remain,  doubt  is  not  "  put  at 
a  distance  ; "  or  that  the  Conscience  no  longer  approves 
of  the  desire  ;  or  that  the  desire  itself  is  weakened. 

xiv.  Belief 

Belief  {when  it  is  not  used  for  Faith)  means  a  sense, 
mixed  with  doubt,  that  the  affirmations  of  our  mind 
will  harmonize  with  Experience} 


xv.  Certainty,  or  Conviction 

Certai?ity,  or  Conviction,  is  a  sense,  unmixed  with 
doubt,  that  the  affirmations  of  our  mind  will 
harmonize  with  Experience. 


xvi.  Knowledge 

i.  Absolute  knowledge,  which  is  possessed  by  no  man, 
would  be  an  identity  between  our  mental  affirmations 
and  those  of  the  Creator;  who  knows  all  things  in 
their  Essence  a?id  Causes. 

2.  Knowledge  {relative  and  ordinary)  is  {very  often)  a 
name  loosely  given  to  a  harmony  between  our  mental 
affirmations  and  the  affirmations  of  the  vast  majority 
of  those  who  have  {or  are  thought  by  the  majority 
to  have)  the  best  opportunities  for  observation  a?id 
judgment. 
It  might  be  more   usefully  defined  as   those   mental 

1  Some  might  prefer  "harmonize  with  experience  or  with  fact"  But 
"  harmony  with  fact  "  can  ?iever  be  proved  :  you  can  only  prove  harmony 
with  your  experience,  or  with  the  general  experience,  of  the  fact ;  or  with 
experience  of  what  others  say  about  the  fact. 


DEFINITIONS  375 

affirmations  which  harmonize  with  our  nature  and 
envirojiment ',  i.e.  with  our  spiritual  and  material 
experiejice. 


xvii.  Illusions  and  Delusions 

Illusions  are  mental  affirmatio7is  not  harmonizing 
with  immediate  experience,  but  preparatory  for 
absolute  knowledge.  Delusions  are  mental  affirma- 
tions not  harmo7iising  with  experieiice,  nor  pre- 
paratory for  absolute  knowledge 


THE   END 


RICHARD   CLAY    AND   SONS,    LONDON   AND    BUNGAY. 


d 


1 

DATE  DUE 

1IU--^ 

rN. 

3^^ 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  INU.SA.     1 

1    1012  010 


5  8543 


